Conquest of Canaan – Israel’s Unfaithfulness | Judges 1:1-26 | 09/20/26

Uh I think most of us are intrigued by

stories of grit. Um grit is the ability

to have uh to finish something through

when it gets hard, when it gets

difficult. And I think a lot of us are

intrigued by those stories, people who

have the tenacity to see a goal all the

way through to the end because most of

us give up a 60%.

Most of us don't have grit. We don't

have tenacity. we don't have the ability

to see something through. And so we

think of things like Navy SEAL training,

generally 24 weeks of intense physical

training, the famous BUDS school week,

hell week where you're kept constantly

moving, running, paddling, carrying

boats, kept with like very little sleep,

all intentionally designed to push you

to the limit. You have things like

people who train their whole lives in

Olympic events for 10 seconds sometimes

of glory.

I had a friend who ran a 100 mile race

because he bought a book by a guy named

David Gogggins who is a guy on the

internet who shouts at you for how bad

you are at everything.

And so he ran a 100 mile race to prove

that he could indeed finish something.

Don't recommend.

Painters, musicians, sculptors, writers,

tens of thousands of hours arranging

their lives around the hobby or interest

they pursue. And so we're so wowed by

people who become brain surgeons because

the amount of school and sacrifice it

takes all these different things we can

see around us where we elevate these

people who have grit and determination

and tenacity who have a goal that they

see through to the end. Most of us have

a challenge just finishing a home

project. Like how many times have you

started to clean out your garage?

You make some progress. You break for

lunch and you're like man that was a

good day.

I'll come back to that in three months.

I almost quit seminary because first

semester biblical languages were really

hard. I was close to leaving pastoral

ministry 14 years ago because I couldn't

speak slowly enough. I mumbled through

my words. I got so bad that I need to

decide if I was going to commit to

making it better or stick through or

just leave. [snorts] I mean, grit is

hard. Grit is hard. Resilience is

difficult. Staying faithful to the end

requires commitment. And so one of the

themes of the book of Judges will teach

us is that will you remain faithful to

God till the end.

Will you follow God and his ways or will

you give into your own will and your own

desires?

And I think we admire tenacity so much

because we mostly struggle with that.

And the Christian life requires

perseverance and commitment.

And we wonder then since we don't do

that well, how does God respond to our

flawed faithfulness?

How does God respond when we're

desperate to give up? When we don't have

our own strength or our own power to see

it through to the end? Is there a second

chance after we compromise?

Why does God show us grace when we fail?

How can I grow in fully surrendering my

heart to God?

And what we see in our text today is a

group of people who lacked tenacity,

who lacked faithfulness to complete

God's work, and they suffer for it. We

see the foundation laid for the nation

of Israel, but there are cracks in the

foundation. And next week, we'll see it

just fully collapse.

God calls us to courageous obedience,

but when we fail, he is still gracious

to us. I want us to see this morning

that faithfulness, not in terms of

saving faith, but faithfulness to obey

God and follow God. Faithfulness

requires both grit and God's grace. It

requires both grit and God's grace.

There is flawed faithfulness in our

text, but God is gracious to continue to

work in people who don't deserve it.

And so to give us some background into

the book of Judges, last week we learned

the main idea of the book of Judges is

that when the throne is empty, we

typically move to sit on the throne. If

we've taken God off the throne, we

typically will try and fill it with

ourselves. And so when God's people kick

God off the throne, they do what is

right in their own eyes. And the book of

Judges opens up with the words after the

death of Joshua.

Joshua died before the land was fully

conquered. He was the one who was the

military leader, the successor to Moses.

And he died before the land was fully

conquered, before the people of God

could establish a new leader. And as you

expect, they did not hold on to the

promise that they made to Joshua for

very long. Among Joshua's last words in

the book of Joshua were, "Choose this

day whom you'll serve." The people of

God replied, saying, "We'll serve the

Lord. We'll obey his voice." And so

Joshua said, "Put away the idols in the

land. Put away the idols, these false

gods you are worshiping. Put them away

and choose to serve the Lord."

The book of Judges is full of Israel

choosing to be like the world, choosing

their idols,

choosing their flawed heroes instead of

the Lord. And yet, we see God's ability

to save his people with many

and his ability to save his people with

even just one.

And in that, we see the need for a true

king and a savior in Jesus. uh the term

judges, if you're kind of wondering what

that even means, uh it it's just the

Hebrew word word for ruler.

And we'll explore those people that God

raised up as we move through the book.

But the first thing we need to see this

morning is that there's an absence of

leadership when Joshua died.

And the people look to God initially,

but then begin to trust their own

methods. And I want us to see three

displays of flawed faithfulness this

morning. And then look at the example

that we read earlier in the middle of

our text of what courageous committed

obedience looks like

as we think about how God has called us

to put our imperfect trust in him. Okay.

First display of flawed faithfulness in

our text

comes in this. They choose obedience on

their terms. Judges 1 verse one to verse

7. Look there with me. 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?" The Lord said, "Judah

shall go up first. Behold, I've 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 and then Judah went up

with the Lord against the Canaanites and

the Perizzites into the hand and they

defeated 10,000 of them at Besc. They

found Adonai Besc at Bessc who fought

against him and defeated the Canaanites

and the Perizzites. Adonai Besc fled and

they pursued him and caught him and cut

off his thumbs and his big toes. And

Adon Bessc said, "Seven 70 kings with

their thumbs and big toes cut off used

to pick up scraps under my table as I

have done. So God has repaid me and they

brought him to Jerusalem and he died

there. That's not the weirdest thing in

this book, just to give you a heads up.

We'll talk about that. But the book of

Judges here, uh, there's a link between

the leadership of Moses and Joshua

before this and the time of the kings.

We'll learn it. It links that time from

Joshua and Moses to the kings. And these

are not a collection of heroes to

emulate, but they're flawed leaders who

will show us a need for a true and

better king in Jesus. So judges will

highlight 12 specific judges. Some of

them mostly good like Oelneiel and

Deborah, but others who were train

wrecks like Gideon and Samson. And along

the way, we learn that God can save his

people with many, and he could save them

with even one. Judges 1:1, Joshua died,

Judges 1:1

had no successor arranged after his

death. Now, God never told him to pick

out a successor like he did with Moses.

But what complicates everything is he

died in the middle of the conquest,

which put people into a challenging

situation. And they did a good thing by

turning to God in the midst of

difficulty. After his death, it'll take

real faith. It'll take real tenacity to

continue and complete the campaign and

settle the land in the way that God

desired. To follow God's plan would take

courageous faith because they're going

into the land as underdogs without a lot

of military experience against a

technologically superior opponent. And

so they inquired of God and God answered

them, "Thumbs up. This is good. What

should we do, God?" And God says, "Judah

shall go up first."

It's great. The rest of chapter 1 and

two then walks through each of the

various tribes doing their part to

conquer the land. But it's a tale of

diminishing returns.

The most faithful group is in the

beginning and the least faithful group

is at the end. And it gets worse and

worse and worse as the tribes each start

to conquer their own land. It ends with

the utter failure of one of the tribes,

the tribe of Dan, who never makes it

into their allotment of land, which

means they failed the exam.

And so Judah responded to the call and

most part things go well. Out of all the

tribes of Israel, they were the most

obedient and God granted them victory

with their faith, even though we'll see

there are flaws and cracks of compromise

that begin in the foundation here. And

the first thing we see is that they

chose to obey God on their terms.

How do we see that? Verse two, the word

said to Judah, "Go up. Behold, I've

given the land into your hand." And

Judah said, "What he 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." This can

seem just like wise strategy, like we're

going to team up together. We'll conquer

my land. I'll help conquer your land.

But this is not what God said. This is

not what God said.

It seems like no big deal at first, but

it's the first hint we have that people

are doing things their way, what's right

in their eyes instead of following God's

command.

They had a direct command from God.

Judah, go up first. And they turn to

Simeon. Hey, you want to team up?

I'll help you. You help me.

Simeon's described as their brother.

That's because of the original children

to Jacob. Um they were they shared um

they shared a mom and um they became um

tribes that were super close together.

In fact, the allotment of land for

Simeon was completely contained inside

the boundaries of Judah's land. And so

if you could visualize it, they had this

little bubble of land inside of all of

Judah's land. Now again it can seem

really smart but Joshua 19:9 says this.

Joshua 19:9

The inheritance of the people of Simeon

formed part of the territory of the

people of Judah because the portion of

the people of Judah was too large for

them. The people of Simeon obtained an

inheritance in the midst of their

inheritance. And so again makes a lot of

sense on paper. Why not help each other?

Teamwork makes the dream work, right?

Likewise, Simeon was one of the smallest

tribes, and the land aotment again was

within the boundaries of Judah. But God

told Judah to go up first. Maybe God

wanted Judah to conquer the whole land

and his gift the portion to Simeon.

Maybe Simeon needed to fight their

battle for their land without

assistance.

But the functional consequence of what

happens after this is within a couple

hundred years, Simeon's basically

forgotten as a tribe. They basically get

absorbed into Judah. They are left out

of like the blessing passages that

happen after this. They're functionally

forgotten as a distinct people.

Now, Judah had success. They defeated

10,000 at Bessc. They captured the lord

of Bess, Adan Bessc, who basically was a

mobster.

Look at verse 6 and 7. This guy ran away

and one of the strangest things we read

in the Bible, they cut off his thumbs

and his big toes. It seems unusual. It

seems cruel, weird, and torturous.

Again, not what God told them to do

either.

But notice saw it as a theological

judgment for his own actions. He had

done this to 70 other rulers and forced

him to think of scraps under his table.

And he saw it as God repaying him for

what he had done. Now, this should make

us ask the question, what are the thumbs

and big toes in your life the Lord needs

to cut off?

Yeah. No.

This may feel like a random historical

account, but I think God's highlighting

the cruelties and injustices of Adanesc

to give us a glimpse of the Canaanite

life, to give us a glimpse of the people

that they are displacing and judging

and the temptation that Israel will have

to become like them

in their own cruelty.

This was normal in the ancient world.

And God was using Israel like a hammer

to drive twisted and wicked and cruel

people out of this land.

So I think this highlights here like who

are the people that they're conquering?

Who are the people that they're

replacing?

There's more success here. Verse 8, the

men of Judah fought against Jerusalem

and captured it and struck it down with

the edge of the sword and set the city

on fire. And afterward the men of Judah

went down to fight against the

Canaanites who lived in the hill country

in the Ngev and in the lowland. And

Judah went against the Canaanites who

lived in Hebron. Now the name of Hebron

was formerly Kirath Arba. And they

defeated Cheshi and Aaman and Talmi.

So more success they had. They conquered

part of Jerusalem. They fought against

the Canaanites in the hill country, the

Negev, which is the desert. They

liberated Hebrron from Cheshi, Aamon,

and Talmi. We'll look at verse 20 in a

moment here, but these were three sons

of Anch and Hebron, which uh was the

first capital city of David's kingdom in

2 Samuel. The sons of Anch are a crazy

bunch of people, but this not the first

time they're mentioned in the Bible. Uh

we can look at Numbers 13:22.

Numbers 13:22

This place was mentioned back then as

well. They went against the Ngev. They

came to Hebron, Amon, Sichi, and Talmi.

The descendants of Anch were there.

Hebron was built seven years before

Zohan and Egypt. Context here for us is

remembering back to when they were in

the promised land. So they were sorry

before they got to the promised land.

They were in the desert.

God sent 12 spies into the promised land

40 years before this moment. Right?

Moses sent the spies to check out the

promised land. The spies were there for

40 days scouting out the land. And they

spotted that land was filled with great

prosperity. The land was flowing with

grapes and pomegranates and milk and

honey, but it was also filled with a lot

of military power and they get into

debate about what to do.

Out of the 12 spies, two of them said,

"Let's go. Let's trust God. Let's enter

the land now." Joshua and Caleb.

And 10 of them brought back a bad

report. And they stirred up doubt and

fear in the people of God. They said

this in numbers 13:32 or yeah 32. So

Numbers 13:32

they brought to the people of Israel a

bad report of the land that they had

spied out, saying, 'The land through

which we've gone to spy out is a land

that devours its inhabitants, and all

the people that we saw in it are of

great height. And there we saw Nephilim,

the sons of Anch, who have come from the

Nephilim. And we seemed to ourselves

like grasshoppers. And so we seemed to

them. These three guys mentioned in

numbers 13:22 are people who scared the

Numbers 13:22

spies.

Now, who were the sons of Anch? There's

so much here, but essentially they were

warriors of great strength, giant size

like Goliath.

The word Nephilim points back to Genesis

6, and there's some debates around the

origin, but possibly the supernatural

offspring of fallen angels. At minimum,

they are warriors of unusual size,

strength, and violence.

These are the guys that made the

Israelites scared in the first place to

enter the land, that led them to fear,

that led them to wandering in the

wilderness in their doubt and unbelief

for 40 years.

They felt like grasshoppers to them.

Like, I'm an average height man.

When I stand next to people who are NBA

height, I feel so I feel like a little

kid. I'm like, "Hi, how are you?" It's

like, I feel like a child.

It's like that, but even worse with

this. And get this, Caleb was one of

those original spies. He saw these guys

40 years before, and he was like, "Let's

just trust God. Let's go get them." And

everyone else is afraid. But here he is

40 years later leading the tribe of

Judah

to victory with that mission being

fulfilled conquering Hebrron.

Like talk about the fulfillment of one

of the greatest

like losses you've had, right? And

seeing that get completely turned around

40 years later.

And so we can celebrate success here,

but there are moments where they desire

to obey God on their terms. And that's

the first crack of compromise in the

foundation here. Their flawed faith

wanted to obey God on their terms. It's

a mixture of of success and failure.

The second thing we see here with flawed

faith is that flawed faith trusts in its

own strength. So it obeys God on your

terms and it trusts in your own

strength. Look at verse 16.

The descendants of the Kennite, Moses'

father-in-law, went up to the people of

Judah from the city of palms into the

wilderness of Judah, which lies in the

Negab.

They went and settled with the people.

And Judah went with Simeon his brother,

and they defeated the Canaanites in

Zepptha, and devoted it to destruction.

The name of the city was Horma. Judah

also captured Gaza with his territory

and Ashclon with his territory and

Echron with his territory. And the ward

was with Judah, and he took possession

of the hill country, but he could not

drive out the inhabitants of the plain

because they had chariots of iron. At

Habbron was given to Caleb, as Moses had

said, and he drove out from it the three

sons of Anch. We mentioned them before.

But the people of Benjamin did not drive

out the Jebusites who lived in

Jerusalem. So the Jebusites have lived

with the people of Benjamin in Jerusalem

to this day. Again, more success. But

notice verse 19. They could not drive

out the inhabitants of the plain because

they have chariots of iron. And look at

verse 21. The people of Benjamin,

another tribe of Israel, did not drive

out the Jebusites from Jerusalem. And

they intermingled together in that city.

Now God had warned Israel in and Joshua,

the book of Joshua, about chariots of

iron specifically. And he called them to

courage. Like it's like, "Hey, there's a

superior technology in the land you're

going into. You need to trust me and

have courage. I will overcome it."

Joshua 17:18.

Joshua 17:18

But the hill country shall be yours. For

uh though it is a forest, you shall

clear it and possess it to its farthest

borders. For you shall drive out the

Canaanites, though they have chariots of

iron and though they are strong.

The Israelites were not in a position to

rely on their own success, their own

strength. They had to trust God. They

were underdogs, underequipped. They not

entered the land with tanks and drones.

They'd only have success with courage

and faith.

We touched on this a bit last week and I

want to circle back to this a bit today,

but there were commands in this text of

scripture we read for them to devote the

cities to destruction to drive the

people out

and they were to trust God as a

militarily weaker force that God would

fight for them that God would give them

victory.

But if you are around like anything

related to apologetics or people who are

questioning faith like this is one of

the bigger like landmines that people

will say to you. Hey, how can you trust

a God who commands his people to commit

genocide?

How can you trust a God who commands the

death of so many people who were just

living their lives in their own land?

This is a problem. What do you do with

that?

We touched on it last week a bit, but I

want to give us some more clarity here

uh because it comes up in our text of

scripture, but it'll come up again and

again in the book of Judges.

We have to keep in mind the lack of

strength of the Israelites and the

historical and literary context here.

God's command for them was twofold. It

was to drive out the inhabitants of

Canaan and two to devote them to

destruction.

We read both those terms in our verses

here. That means the goal was to clear

the promised land for the people of God

and for those who refused to leave to

destroy them.

Now, as we learned last week, Pastor

Jason talked about this, but God had

given them 400 years to repent. The

Canaanites, they given them 400 years to

repent, but they were exceedingly wicked

and evil. And in fact, things only got

worse in those 400 years. And so God was

using Israel as a tool or a means of

judgment about their evil.

One theologian used the image of if you

just watched the scene in Star Wars New

Hope where Luke Skywalker blows up the

Death Star.

You would think like, wait, what? That's

like cruel and evil. That's the only

thing you saw was him delivering those

torpedoes. I don't know what the

technical term is. Blasts into the

radiator shaft like and blowing up the

desert. be like, "What about the

janitor? What about the cafeteria

workers in the Death Star? They didn't

deserve that."

But if you pull back and see the whole

movie, you know, the whole context here,

it's clear that the Empire is the bad

guys.

That they used the Death Star to destroy

an entire planet earlier in the movie.

That Luke and the rebels were the

military underdogs using bold faith to

save more people from destruction. that

they didn't act that more evil would

occur.

So, I want to give you four

considerations to help us think about

this this command to drive out and

devote destruction.

First, this war was God's judgment by

direct revelation from God.

It's not an excuse for holy war whenever

we feel like it.

God was specifically judging a really

wicked and evil society as he was

providing a place for his people that he

had promised them.

We often assume that what's happening

here is that it's happening to

completely innocent people.

And that is a very big assumption to

make.

What we know from the scriptures is that

the Canaanite culture was thoroughly

wicked top to bottom and and everyone

practiced it.

sacrificing kids, sexual immorality,

pagan worship, injustice,

that earlier passage about the cruelty

and torture people in power use against

people who didn't have power.

And so we have to remember this is God's

judgment by direct revelation from God.

He's the giver and taker of life. And

that's really uncomfortable for many of

us. It's been uncomfortable for me. But

the more I've interacted with these

passages, these scriptures, the more

I've interacted with knowing God, I have

to trust that God is the one with all

wisdom and knowledge as the giver and

even the taker of life.

Second, this conquest was not motivated

by greed or racism like typical genocide

would be. God was concerned with evil

and sin and Israel not following these

false gods of the Canaanites. And so the

conquest was not motivated by typical

motivators of genocide.

Third consideration,

God knew that Israel was not spiritually

strong enough to intermingle with the

Canaanites.

He knew that Israel is spiritually weak.

And as we'll see throughout the book of

Judges, because of their failure to obey

God here in this text, they struggle

with being like Canaan. We used the term

Canaanization last week that they become

like the Canaanites in their practices.

They do things that the Canaanites did

like sacrifice children, commit sexual

immorality, worship foreign gods. They

were weak in the face of spiritual

temptation.

And the fourth consideration I think for

us to understand and get our mind around

what's happening here is that driving

out and devoting to destruction are

different things.

Often the threat of a foreign enemy

would push vulnerable groups like women

and children to leave harm's way.

only the defenders would be back in

battle. And in fact, historically and

archaeologically, you can see that many

of these sites where these battles

happened were largely military outposts.

They were military sites or civilian

cities elsewhere. And so once the

military was defeated, typically the

city inhabitants would move and

relocate. They would flee.

And just looking at all this, right, I

think some of us just really wonder like

why doesn't God do more more about the

evil in this world with all this evil

happening around us? Why does God stand

silent?

Why is God indifferent

to things that we see as being

objectively evil?

And here we have a one-time event where

God did something about evil.

He he moved to use his people to stop

child sacrifice and mutilation and

sexual immorality and to protect his

people from becoming like the nations

they were displacing.

And so just not like a complete answer,

but as you dig into all this, those are

some considerations to keep in mind.

Going back to the text,

they failed to follow through with this

commitment.

The Canaanites

were not driven out of the land

completely. They intermingled with the

people of God. And so the question is

why did they give up? If God granted

them victory, if God had parted the Red

Sea for them, if God provided man in the

wilderness, if God had done all these

miraculous things, why did they give up

in the face of chariots of iron?

It's because they did not believe that

God was strong enough to overcome it.

They did not trust that God had the

strength to do what he promised.

Psalm 147 verse 10 vers 11. This is

Psalms 147:10

great passage for us to remember when we

feel like we don't have the tenacity to

finish a project or to to follow God

obediently with a full heart of faith.

This is a great place to land. Psalm

Psalms 147:10

147:10.

His delight is not in the strength of

the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs

of a man.

God is under delight in your strength.

But the Lord takes pleasure in those who

fear him and those who hope in his

steadfast love. It's not about our

strength. It's not about our lack of

strength.

They failed to trust God because they

had a lack of trust in God's strength.

Israel is not the military superpower

here. Our passage said that they were

like, "Oh, there's chariots of iron.

We're out.

For them to succeed, they would need to

fight against superior technologies,

fight against even giants.

And God warned them about the superior

technology before entering the land. But

he wanted them to understand that God's

presence canceled out their enem

superior technology.

But since they trusted in their own

strength, they give up when things

seemed too hard. They didn't drive out

the inhabitants of the plain or the

Jebusites from the city of Jerusalem.

And so flawed faith may acknowledge God

verbally, but at the end of the day, it

trusts in its own strength.

When we do this, we do this when we look

at the circumstances around us for our

confidence. We do this when we give God

a list of things we need to be obedient

to him. God, I will obey

you. When I have chariots of iron

myself, when I have a higher paying job.

When I have a set of friends who more

present in my life. or when I have a

marriage or a bigger home or kids or

when I have more emotional stability,

then I'll obey.

And so what we're saying in those times

is, God, I don't trust you to show up in

your power right here, right now. I'd

rather trust in my own strength and

limit you, God, and how you show up.

And so this flawed faith again obeys God

on its terms. A flawed faith will trust

in its own strength. The third thing we

see here is that a flawed faith looks

for shortcuts.

A flawed faith looks for shortcuts.

Verse 22. Another tribe, the house of

Joseph,

also went up against Bethl, and the Lord

was with them. And the house of Joseph

scouted out Bethl. Now the city was

formerly named Loose.

And the spies saw a man coming out of

the city, and they said to him, "Please

show us the way into the city, and we'll

deal kindly with you." And he showed

them the way into the city. And they

struck the city with the edge of the

sword, but they let the man and his

family go.

And the man went to the land of the

Hittites and built a city and called its

name LSE. And that's its name to this

day. The text turns to another tribe,

the people of Joseph, Ephraim, Manasseh,

and they have a clear failure to trust

God here. Specifically, they take a

shortcut. They sent spies who found a

man and his family leaving the city of

Loose, and they cut a deal with him.

They arranged to have them sneak them

into the city so they could get straight

down the city. And in exchange, they let

them go because they helped them out.

Now, instead of trusting God to deliver

the city to them, they look for a safer

way. Now, on the surface, again, this

looks smart and similar to what Joshua

did with Jericho and Rahab. Back in the

book of Joshua, Rahab hid the spies. It

was saved from destruction. And the

similarity is is very apparent here.

Both times spies were sent out. There

was contact with an ordinary person in

the city. They requested help. There was

an offer of a reward. And then the city

was conquered. But the major exception

here is that Rahab professed a faith and

trust in God. Rahab professed a faith

and trust in Yahweh. And these spies did

not do that. And we see the judgment

that what happens is that they go and

start the city all over again in a

different place.

They went and started a new city among

the Canaanites named Liz. There was no

call for them to join the people of God.

No call to turn from their false gods.

their able this to continue their ways.

Now, shortcuts often cause a problem

down the road.

And this tribe chose convenience, a

quick solution to gain an advantage

instead of being faithful. It's again a

lack of trust in God's timing, in God's

way. And so, a flawed faith will do

what's right in its own eyes and will

follow God when it's convenient. It'll

follow God when it gets you somewhere.

But often there are setbacks and

hardships that will happen when we look

for shortcuts.

As I said, as we shared last week, uh we

don't like when God interferes with our

ideas or our ways of doing things.

Um I read a story recently of a pastor

and um they had a church member email

their office and asked to be removed

from their membership and their stated

reason for leaving was, "I don't like

the pastor's sermons.

We get those all the time.

No, I'm just kidding. Kidding. Joking.

It was a big church. Uh the pastor did

not know the member who was leaving uh

personally, but he decided to call them

and he's like, "We'll find out what's

going on here." He called them and he

said, "Hey, I heard you're leaving

because you don't like my sermons."

There's a long pause. You can imagine

the guy was awkward, caught off guard

and started to ramble. But somewhere in

the middle, he said, "Well, yeah, I feel

like whenever I listen to one of your

sermons, I feel like you're trying to

interfere with my life."

And the pastor was so encouraged to hear

that

God wants to interfere with your life,

and that's a good thing.

Well,

like we want the path of like least

resistance. We want the path that makes

sense in our own eyes, but God is like

no.

And and what this guy was saying is,

I'll listen and respond to God when it's

convenient. I will think about God when

there's an advantage. I will do what he

says when it makes sense in my own

heart, in my own mind. But if he

interferes with my life, I'm out.

This is not a committed, tenacious,

all-in sort of faith.

In faith, we surrender our

self-sufficiency. We put our trust in

Christ. And there are times when bold

faith will not make sense. Times when we

will be so overcome by our lack of

strength,

when it will be easy to cut corners and

find shortcuts. And so, God is not

looking for perfection. He's not looking

for performance. He's looking for our

faith. one that's willing to say to the

Lord, "Take my life and use it for your

glory."

Now, stepping back, what do we see here?

We see in Judges one here is a

foundation for the nation being laid

down for their life in the promised

land. But there are cracks of compromise

that will lead to a collapse.

It's like the Millennium Tower in San

Francisco, right? the luxury apartment

building that's sinking in its

foundation and leaning.

You'd imagine signing a lease for a

luxury apartment, paying luxury

apartment prices, and then the building

starts to sink deeper and deeper,

leaning and tilting because the clay it

was built on was not stable.

It doesn't matter what you build on a a

bad foundation, it's not going to last.

>> [snorts]

>> And so it may look like the people of

God are successful and faithful here,

but their flawed faithfulness is going

to be exposed particularly in the next

section of scripture. They lack tenacity

to resolve to complete the work and obey

God.

A Puritan pastor Richard Sib said it

this way. Obedience is more than just

knowing what is right. It's having the

fortitude to pursue it. It's more than

just knowing what is right. is having

the fortitude, the grit, the tenacity,

the faithfulness to pursue it.

There's good news, though.

God treats us with more grace than our

strength and our faith deserve.

God faithfully kept his promise to his

people even when they just sort of

obeyed,

even when they had flawed faithfulness.

And I think that's why we get the story

of committed faith in verse 11 to 15

here. The hero of this chapter is a

woman. It's Axaw Caleb's daughter. Verse

11.

From there they went against the

inhabitants of Deir. The name of Deir

was formerly Kurasifer. And Caleb said,

"He who attacks Kurasifer and captures

it, I'll give him Axon, my daughter as a

wife." And Oelene, the son of Ka,

Caleb's younger brother, captured it.

and he gave him Axaw's daughter for a

wife. When she came to him, she urged

him to ask her father for a field. And

she dismounted from her donkey. And

Caleb said to her, "What do you want?"

And she said, "Give me a blessing.

Since you've set me in the land of the

Ngev, give me also springs of water."

And Caleb gave her the upper and the

lower springs. Um, what does God want

for us? Like, we get this example in the

middle of our text of scripture here of

a committed, courageous faith. The faith

that is determined, that has grit, and

relies on God's grace, relies on God's

blessing.

Caleb was one of the original 12 spies

who went into the promised land. The one

that wasn't afraid. He's the last one

alive from the generation that

experienced the parting of the Red Sea.

He's the last man standing from the

people who saw the plagues and God's

miraculous deliverance, the Passover

angel, the parting of the Red Sea, all

the battles they went through. He's the

last one to taste the whips of Egypt.

the last one alive.

And he gave a challenge to the people of

Judah. Whoever attacks Kira and captures

it will have my daughter in marriage.

Caleb's ensuring this could feel like,

oh, it's like what's going on there?

Like she could she should choose her own

husband, you know? Um different world

back then. But Caleb's ensuring a couple

things here. One, that her husband will

be with someone who loves and follows

the ways of the Lord.

two, that he be bold and noble, and

three, that she'd have an inheritance in

the land. And so answers the challenge

and presumably leads a group of soldiers

into battle and captures the city in

faith. And he'll become the first judge

in chapter 3. The first example of

someone who is ordained by God to lead

his people to victory.

Axile, Caleb's daughter, turns to

Ollians and basically says, "Hey, this

marriage is not enough. I'm worth more

than that. Ask for land. Ask for water.

She basically asks Caleb for a blessing

in our text. The only woman in the

entire Bible to ask for a blessing and

receive it is right here.

And notice what she wanted.

Land and water. She wanted to settle

into the promised land. She wanted to

make the promised land home.

She entered something important here

that no one else in the story around her

really gets. She desired to settle in

and enjoy the blessing of what God

provided.

She understood and long for the right

thing to be at home with God.

And so God's desire for his people are

seen in this family and Caleb Oelio and

Axaw. They were faithful, bold, ready to

settle into the land. It's a faith that

wants to settle in to put down roots to

be committed even when things aren't

convenient, even when you feel like you

don't have the strength.

And as a follower of Jesus, this is what

God desires for his people. A faith that

is fixed on him. And when we do make

mistakes, when we do trust in our own

strength, when we do seek shortcuts, a

faith that turns back

to remember

his grace to us.

that there's forgiveness and restoration

and that God deals with us. He treats us

better than we deserve.

Jesus told his followers that to follow

him, they had to put their hand to the

plow and not look back. And farming

world, put your hand to the plow. Ox is

pulling the plow. You're digging up

trenches, right, to plant for the

season. And you turn back, what happens?

The lions get crooked.

The lines go, they don't stay straight.

You keep your eye on a fixed point in

the horizon.

That's how you stay committed according

to Jesus.

But what if you're here today and you're

like, David,

this flawed faithfulness sounds a lot

like me.

This putting my hand to the plow and not

looking back, that doesn't sound like

me. This flawed faithfulness sounds a

lot like me. Obeying God on my terms,

trusting my own strength, looking for

shortcuts.

Is God through with me since I struggle?

Is God done because I don't have the

spiritual grit that I need?

This book shows us that God gives more

grace than we deserve. Grace again is

God's unearned favor. And by definition,

we cannot earn it.

It should be a regular

occurrence in your life to be amazed

that God is as kind to you as he is.

That is faithful worship.

That God is as kind to us as he is. Paul

talks about in Ephesians 1 verse 7. Paul

Ephesians 1:7

tells us that God has shown us

immeasurable grace and kindness in

Christ Jesus. If you're like David, my

faith is so flawed. Take a moment right

now and worship

that God would make a way for a person

like you to be saved. There is one

savior. It's not Oel. It's not Gideon or

Samson. It's not Deborah. It's not you.

It's not me. It's Jesus.

God's grace can triumph over our flawed

faithfulness because Jesus Christ, he

put his hand on the plow and didn't look

back. He stayed committed to the end.

He went to the cross to trade his life

for ours, to pay for our sins, to give

us new life in him. And so God's grace

is not an excuse for us to fail. It's

not a way to say our obedience doesn't

matter, but it's a promise that for

those in Christ, when we do fail, that

God is slow to anger, that he's

abounding in steadfast love. And so we

acknowledge our sins. We acknowledge our

weakness. We repent. We try and walk in

obedience to him knowing that his grace

abounds to us.

And so if you feel like David, I'm like

the flawed faith person here.

Go to the Lord for his grace. There is

forgiveness in Jesus.

His grace covers a multitude of sins.

And at the same time,

we can show grit and tenacity. We can

identify

in our lives where we are lacking

specific trust to God.

We can identify the times where we're

kicking God off the throne

and taking the spot for ourselves

and prayerfully submit them to him. We

can surrender.

The proper response to the kingship of

Jesus is our wholehearted surrender.

It's not negotiating with him for power.

It's not trying to cut favorable terms.

In his wisdom and his mercy and

knowledge, he knows exactly that the

thing we're clinging on to right now

will kill us. He wants to remove it.

Where are you taking a shortcut right

now? Where are you obeying God in your

terms? Where are you trusting in your

own strength? The gospel invites us both

to receive God's grace and to

courageously obey by surrendering that

thing.

It's not easy,

but God will give you the grace to do

it.