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Experience God
6 Plays2 days ago
Judges 2:6-3:11
Recommended
Transcript
Experiencing God: Emotion or Reality?
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Speaker
and imagine this morning that each of you have shown up in some small fashion, coming here, sitting in the pews this morning, ah looking through the stained glass window as the sun shines on your face, and you feel the cold air of the A.C. blowing on you, and you hear the angelic singing of the choir, and each of you have come in some small way, some small fashion, expecting to experience God.
00:00:30
Speaker
that you come here on Sundays, each Sunday, for a few hours. For some of you that starts at 9.30 in the morning at Bible study. Others of you have a little tougher time getting moving and you and you barely make it to service.
00:00:48
Speaker
Both of you, when you get here, are experiencing God, or that's your hope at least. But what do we really mean when we say that?
00:00:59
Speaker
We've come here to experience God. Is it some feeling that we have?
00:01:08
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Is it some emotion that we hope gets stirred up within us?
00:01:16
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Well, I'm going to make a pretty compelling argument today that it's neither one of those. going to see from the passage today that this generation...
00:01:27
Speaker
this prior generation, knew God. This word knew in the Hebrew is a much fuller meaning. it's It's not simply a head knowledge. it's not simply like, I know Monty or I know Billy.
00:01:43
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It's a deeper experiential knowledge. It's somebody who says, I've seen him, I've lived with him, I've felt him, And that experience has led me to an unwavering commitment to Him.
00:01:59
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And friends, that commitment drives you and I here Sunday after Sunday after Sunday to worship Him so that He receives the glory. And who doesn't want that?
00:02:15
Speaker
mean, who doesn't want to come to church and experience the Almighty? Not just know Him, but know Him.
Obstacles to Experiencing God
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Friends, when you leave here today, going to have two questions that I hope to answer for you.
00:02:32
Speaker
How can we experience God? That's the first one. And what can get in the way of that?
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Speaker
How can we experience God and what? We'll get in the way
Lessons from the Book of Judges
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Speaker
of that. That's that's where we're going today. Turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Judges. You'll remember if you were here last week in your faithfulness as we jumped into the very beginning of this journey of Judges. By the way, I did some basic math.
00:02:57
Speaker
We'll conclude Judges, God willing, at the beginning of March 2026. so Buckle up. As my kid used to say, buckle up. We began this journey last week and we saw Moses, who was a faithful servant of the Lord, had passed the baton to Joshua, who was also a faithful servant of the Lord.
00:03:17
Speaker
And it said that while Joshua was leading the people, that generation followed the Lord.
00:03:27
Speaker
Look at me real quick. Judges chapter 2, verse 6 gives us a summary, if you will, of this generation today.
00:03:39
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6 says, After Joshua sent the people away, each each of the tribes left to take possession of the land allotted to them. and the And the Israelites served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and the leaders who outlived him.
00:03:53
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Those who had seen all the great things that the Lord had done. for Israel. This, brothers and sisters, is that generation. This is that generation who received the baton Joshua did for Moses.
00:04:09
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And Moses taught them, and it says not only did Joshua's generation, but the leaders that were also with him, that very bridge between the two big generations, they all followed the Lord.
00:04:24
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They saw all the good things that the Lord had done, and they served. If you're taking notes, that might be the first thing you write. Saw, S-A-W, and served.
00:04:38
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But,
00:04:43
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always tell you i want to write a book called The Big Butts in the Bible.
00:04:48
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But, Verse 10, after that generation, this is the generation that followed the Lord. After they died, another generation grew up or sprouted up or so slowly came on the scene.
00:05:03
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That generation did not acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things that he had done for Israel.
00:05:13
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They grew up. This is not a sudden change. This is not a sudden shift between your dad's generation and your generation. You grew up with your parents. You spent time with your parents. And it says this generation grew up, yet they did not know. Here's this word in the Hebrew.
00:05:35
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Yadah. They didn't have this intimate connection
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with the Lord. They hadn't seen what the Lord had done. and I put a question to myself, was it simply because Joshua's generation didn't pass it down?
00:05:55
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I'd have a hard time believing that. That you could live alongside Joshua and Joshua's kids and his grandkids all that time and not see all the good things that the Lord had done.
00:06:06
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So what happened to this generation, these ones who didn't know the Lord? Well, I simply put, it's not some memory lapse. They didn't wake up one morning and say, you know, ah didn't have the ginkgo biloba and I forgot who the Lord was.
00:06:25
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Those are you who are scratching your heads, ginkgo biloba is ah a pill you take to help your memory stay sharper. It's a vitamin. Work with me.
00:06:37
Speaker
It's not some memory lapse. It's not that they inadvertently strayed from the straight and narrow. No, brothers and sisters, verse 11 is very clear. Look with me, verse 11. It says, the Israelites, this generation that did not know the Lord, that did not have this intimate experiential knowledge, they did evil in the Lord's sight and they served the images of, I want to teach you this word today.
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It's not Baal.
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How many y'all have heard that before growing up in church? right You farmers will appreciate this. can i Can I give you just a little schooling today? What sound does a sheep make?
00:07:21
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Bah. And this everybody here today, this is all the church. Bah. All. That's how we pronounce this. It's not Baal. And it's important for us to know this because they left the God of their fathers, their generation.
00:07:42
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They left that god for Baal. It was deliberate.
00:07:50
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It was high treason, I put in my notes. it's It's following your king and then completely turning your back on your king and going, I'm no longer following that king, I'm following this guy over here.
00:08:05
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They're missing out on all that God had prepared for them. And I love how I sat under Wes' teaching today in his class, and I just chuckled at myself because Wes basically taught the sermon that I'm gonna give today, just so happened to be in Numbers.
00:08:23
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Doesn't give you right, Wes, to check out right now. You have to listen to this one too. Listen, brothers and sisters, how not knowing god how it turned out for these folks.
00:08:39
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Look at verse 12. It says, They abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They sought after other gods, worshiping the gods of the people around them.
00:09:02
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And they angered the Lord.
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Verse 13, they abandoned the Lord to serve Baal in the image Atharoth.
00:09:17
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I just put down verbs and those couple of those couple of verses. Listen to the verbs.
Syncretism: Then and Now
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They did evil. They served for another god. They abandoned the Lord twice. They went after. They sought it after. That's an act of seeking.
00:09:31
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And they bowed down.
00:09:35
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See, I made it a point today when I came in early this morning fully knowing I was going to do a baptism. And I thought to myself, Lord, thank you for this public demonstration that we have an opportunity to participate in as a congregation to see to see sweet Autumn, you know, ah wave her flag, if you will, right, for Jesus.
00:10:00
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Brothers sisters, there something innate within us that God has placed to worship. We're all going to worship something. You're either going to worship Jesus, the Lord, you're going to worship something lesser.
00:10:15
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It's not an option. It's not, hey, I'm just not going to worship. God has placed something in you, a desire, if you will, to worship. But it says this generation, this one who didn't know him, they sought after this active seeking of not the God of their ancestors, but the gods that were around them.
00:10:40
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I circled that in my notes, by the way.
00:10:44
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This is the God of Israel who delivered them out of Egypt where Egypt was full of what? Idols. Idol worship.
00:10:55
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He took them out of an environment of idol worship through the desert going into the promised land and he says, here you go, this is what I promised you and what do they do?
00:11:07
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They go right back to idol worship.
00:11:12
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And I put down a note to myself, don't be too quick to judge them because we're all idol worshipers. Not me, pastor. Oh, yes, you too. I'll prove it just a second.
00:11:25
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They were supposed to drive out. You'll remember Brother West, your class probably taught this today too. This was the command that God had given them. Go and drive out the Canaanites. Because God in his almighty wisdom and his sovereignty knew that if you don't drive them out, you're going to intermingle with them and their idols will become your idols.
00:11:57
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It never happens all at once. Just jumping ship.
00:12:03
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Serving the Lord one day and then serving something else the next. It just doesn't happen that way. Brothers sisters, it's a small, gradual drift.
00:12:17
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They looked around what they saw. want to paint a real clear picture of what's happening here. right They're in the land of Canaan and they're with the Canaanites. They're living among them.
00:12:30
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And undoubtedly, because Ruth tells us it's in a time of drought and a time of famine, they're probably praying for what? Just like we are. Lord, give us rain.
00:12:43
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It's amazing how all these years later we're still praying for rain.
00:12:49
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Lord, give us rain so that our crops may grow. But because they have the Canaanites around them, the Canaanites aren't praying to the Lord.
00:13:01
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They're praying to who? Baal. And they're praying to Ashtoreth. Ashtoreth is often ah placed alongside Baal. One's a male deity, one's a female deity. Both are wrapped around fertility and rain and growth.
00:13:19
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So what's happening, I want you to understand brothers and sisters, the Canaanites are telling them you want rain, why are you praying to Yahweh? Yahweh's not going to help you. Baal will.
00:13:31
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Ostereth will. And so what do they do? We need rain. And they start taking a little bit of the culture and what the culture thinks and they start mixing in with their beliefs.
00:13:44
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This is syncretism.
00:13:53
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It's a blending of your beliefs and the culture's beliefs. Thankfully, I put here, we don't struggle with this today.
00:14:05
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What does this look like today? Well, it says we can't wait to come to church on Sunday and hear God's word exposited. By the way, it's great if we also happen to just have a little bit of politics sprinkled in there.
00:14:20
Speaker
Because we have a Republican president, and I would guarantee probably 99% of you are Republicans. Boy, those messages that the pastor brings whenever there's a little bit of politics sprinkled in, boy, I could really, whoo, I could get behind those.
00:14:35
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Praise Trump.
00:14:38
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By the way, online, that's all they'll cut out right there. and That's the whole message. They'll just get me saying praise Trump.
00:14:45
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Don't get me wrong. It's the lesser of two evils. But what happens, brothers and sisters, we start melding cultural ideas with Christianity. And you go, that would never happen from here.
The Cycle of Sin and Redemption in Judges
00:14:58
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It's happening, by the way, in churches just like this, just down the road, where somehow Jesus and Trump are on the same playing field.
00:15:13
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Okay, politics isn't your bag of tricks. What about materialism? We'll sprinkle a little bit of that in the sermon. God really wants you to be prosperous. Matter of fact, I read through it the whole the whole Old Testament.
00:15:26
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He wants you to be healthy and wealthy.
00:15:31
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That's a false gospel. You no longer experience the true gospel. and i so I put here it's a distorted false prosperity gospel. It's God's word plus something else.
00:15:42
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and Brothers and sisters, it's preached all over the place in American pulpits every Sunday.
00:15:52
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How does God respond to this treason, if you will? Well, look at verse 14. Let's go right back to God's Word.
00:16:02
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This made the Lord, ah like the New Living Translation, burn with anger. Burn with anger against Israel. And so he handed them over to raiders who stole their possessions.
00:16:16
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He turned them over to the enemies all around and they and they were no longer able to resist them. Every time Israel went to battle, the Lord fought against them. Causing them to be defeated just as he had warned. And the peoples were in great ah love this distress. They were crying out.
00:16:37
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Look at the verbs, if you will. This is God's response to treason. He was angered. He burned against. He gave them over. He sold them. He was against them.
00:16:48
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Brothers sisters, you never want to be in that place where the Lord Almighty is against you. And we see this cycle over and over and over in the book of Judges, so much so that I want you to write down this acronym, because this is every time I've ever taught the book of Judges, you're going want to learn this acronym.
00:17:06
Speaker
S, write down the letter S, O-R-D. The way i remember it's like a sword. that you stab people with, but there's no W, my wife likes to point out all the time. There's no W in that.
00:17:21
Speaker
ah S-O-R-D. Sin, oppression, repentance, deliverance. This is the cycle that the Israelites go through all throughout the book of Judges.
00:17:36
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It's this spiritual failure, this sin oftentimes, where they're abandoning their God for a lesser God, And he starts oppressing them.
00:17:49
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Oftentimes it's through their enemies. God allows, you read it right here. He's causing, if that makes you feel any better. He's allowing the enemies to come in and root them. To oppress them so much so that they go, Lord, save me.
00:18:07
Speaker
And they cry out in and repentance. And the Lord is faithful and he sends a deliverer. also known as a judge right that we're studying today.
00:18:20
Speaker
Yet, in this crying out and God being faithful to raising up a judge, look at verse 17. 17 says, Yet Israel did not listen to the judge or the judges.
00:18:37
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But instead, this is what they did. They didn't listen to the person God brought them to deliver them. They prostituted themselves by worshiping other gods. How quickly they turned away from the path of their ancestors who had walked in obedience to the Lord's commands.
00:18:56
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I just simply circle to my notes. Oh, how quickly they turned. Brothers sisters, this remind you of anybody that you know?
00:19:06
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It should remind you of yourself a little bit. It reminds me of myself. How often do we pray to God, deliver me out of this situation? I swear i will stop doing... fill in the blank.
00:19:18
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Just, oh Lord, please. And he does. After he lets you struggle and you eventually repent. We'll talk about repentance here in just a second, what that really looks like.
00:19:30
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And he delivers you. And then we're so thankful. Thank you, Lord. Thank you. I'll never go back to fill in the blank. And Monday comes around and what are you doing? You've gone back to fill in the blank.
00:19:45
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It's not just me, brothers and sisters. It's you too. And that cycle continues. Verse 18 says, And when the Lord raised up a judge over Israel, He was a judge and he rescued the people from their enemies throughout the judge's lifetime. For the Lord took pity on his people who were burdened by their oppression and by their suffering.
00:20:03
Speaker
But when the judge died, the people returned to their corrupt ways. Behaving worse, oftentimes more than they had before. When they went after other gods, serving and worshiping him, they gave up.
00:20:17
Speaker
They refused to give up that which was evil in practice and in their lives. See, the only way you're able to break this vicious cycle is through true repentance. What is true repentance? Well, true repentance says I'm going to turn away from that idol, but I'm also going to turn this way back to God.
00:20:37
Speaker
See, Israel did this time and time again. I'm turning from my idols, but they didn't turn back to God for long.
The Role of Faith Stories
00:20:48
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Because there was this thing inside of them that desired to worship something.
00:20:54
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And God says, I'm right here. Remember me? I delivered you out of Egypt. Remember me? I gave you all those promises.
00:21:06
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Why are you going after something lesser?
00:21:11
Speaker
But we do it all the time.
00:21:14
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We turn back to these lesser gods. This wasn't the case for the older generation. Why is this? I put. It's because they knew God. They had this intimate relationship with Him. They experienced Him. Remember, this is the generation that's in the desert.
00:21:30
Speaker
What did they experience in the desert? The pillar of fire. The cloud of smoke that led them. They experienced manna. They experienced quail.
00:21:43
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They had the prophets there in the wilderness.
00:21:55
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They
00:21:58
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They saw, they experienced, they remembered, they recalled, and that drove them to serve the Lord. And by the way, it drove them away from serving idols.
00:22:12
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I put down half of my job for you today is simply to remind you what God's already said.
00:22:18
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I have a great job, by the way, up here. I simply have to tell you what God's Word says and and then I leave it up to you to do.
00:22:29
Speaker
When was the last time I put here that you remembered the mighty great things that the Lord has done in your life? Have you ever listened to somebody who is a great storyteller? Someone who's who's really good with words, they paint a picture of kind of where they're at and they give you all the details of the story, right? And they're excited when they tell it and their eyes their eyebrows go up like this and they're engaging and you're man you can't help but watch them, right?
00:22:53
Speaker
And they're authentic because they've been there and they've lived it. By the way, you can always tell somebody who's telling a story that's never been there. Like if I were to tell you some story about special forces and how I was crawling under the ground in Iraq,
00:23:06
Speaker
You would completely read through that because I never did that. I could be a fantastic storyteller. The authenticity comes when you're there and you've lived it. Brothers and sisters, this is that generation.
00:23:17
Speaker
They were in the desert. They experienced walking through the Red Sea as God imparted it. This is that generation who knew. Can you imagine how credible their testimony must have been?
00:23:29
Speaker
Can you imagine them talking to their kids and their grandkids? Like you guys all get around and talk about what everybody did last Thanksgiving. Remember how fun that was? Imagine this group.
00:23:41
Speaker
Hey, do you remember last Thursday when God parted the sea and we all walked through it? What a testimony that would have been.
00:23:49
Speaker
It's that generation, friends, that knew. the Lord, and served the Lord. And right in the mix of this story of a generation who knew God and a generation who didn't know God, we have this little story of Othiel inserted right in the middle.
00:24:08
Speaker
Look with me. I'm going to jump up to chapter 3. Chapter 3, verse 9.
00:24:17
Speaker
By the way, if you're like, the pastor never jumps this many verses. If where I stopped at up to verse 9 in chapter 3, it's all that same cycle.
00:24:28
Speaker
Sinning, oppression, repentance, delivery. Over and over, they're not getting it. Look look at the story of somebody who gets it. Chapter 3, verse 9, it says, But when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help, the Lord raised up a rescuer, a deliverer, to save them.
00:24:44
Speaker
And his name was Othniel, the son of Caleb's younger brother, Kenneth. And the Spirit Lord came upon him, and he became Israel's judge or deliverer.
00:24:56
Speaker
And he went to war against King yamni i'm goingnna try to pronounce that Cushion of Aram. And the Lord gave Othniel victory over him. And so there was peace the land for 40 years.
00:25:09
Speaker
And then Othniel died. Brothers and sisters, do you see that story is so tightly woven? It's not a fantastic storytelling. It's just the bare facts.
00:25:25
Speaker
There's no backstory. There's no building up of the plot. There's no dramatization of the events. There's no dialogue. Matter of fact, there's no reported speech at all in these few verses. Nothing distracts us from the simple fact, here's a man, his name is Othniel.
00:25:42
Speaker
He's a guy who's faithful to God. God puts him in a place to save the people, period. I put in my notes, it's not about him, it's not about Othniel, it's all about God.
00:25:53
Speaker
It's inserted here in this story for just that reason. In the midst of a generation who knew God and followed God because they saw what he did and they served him, you have the next generation who knew nothing about him matter of fact, they left God and they served the idols.
00:26:09
Speaker
And the author is doing something here by placing this seemingly random story of Othniel. He's saying, whoa, whoa, whoa. Focus back here. This is what it takes to follow God. I'm going raise up a man to deliver you from your situation. It's not about that man.
00:26:24
Speaker
It's about me, God.
Focus on God, Not Leaders
00:26:26
Speaker
When I put down the problem that you and I face today is we don't follow God. We follow men. You know, I know that. I suddenly can scroll on my Facebook feed and I see all these fabulous preachers.
00:26:45
Speaker
that have their quick little reels, and then all you guys are commenting, oh, this guy is so fabulous. I love him. Isn't he great? And what do we do when we make a comment like that?
00:27:00
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We elevate him. You know what? His sermon last week, oh, it was right on point, touched by heart.
00:27:09
Speaker
We just keep elevating him. Men. called by God to preach God's word, but brothers sisters, they're still men. And what happens is the problem is we end up putting these guys on a pedestal when we should be putting God on a pedestal.
00:27:25
Speaker
Because the best of us from the pulpit, my prayer each and every week before I even get up here is protect me. Protect me from somebody saying, wow, pastor, you did such a great job last week. And I go, ooh, yeah, you know what? Maybe I'm getting this down.
00:27:42
Speaker
Man, we need to give the pastor a raise. Oh, really? Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Because, brothers sisters, that's the way it works. Oh, you know what? oh Not only do I get compliments from you guys, man, I heard somebody another church say, ooh, the First Baptist, they don't even know what they have in a pastor. He is killing it.
00:28:00
Speaker
And I thought, really? Because that's what happens when just start elevating this position, this pulpit, way above this. It's disastrous.
00:28:12
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It's disaster. Please, please, please don't do that. Othniel did what God called him to do, and the result, brothers sisters, said they had four decades of rest.
00:28:24
Speaker
and ah In a place where war was imminent and they were all this idol worship, Othniel comes on the scene and it says God raised up this guy. empowered by God, aligned with God's purposes, and it made it all about God and not about himself. And God honored that among the people for four decades, 40 years of rest.
00:28:46
Speaker
So what do we do with this passage this morning?
00:28:50
Speaker
Our two questions. How do we experience God and what gets in the way? How we experience God if you and I weren't in the desert? If we didn't see the pillar, if we didn't get the manna, if we didn't get the quail, if we didn't see the Red Sea parted, how do you and I experience God? Because if we're supposed to see Him and that seeing serves us or draws us to go serve Him, what do we do?
00:29:14
Speaker
I put down, I love this as a pastor because I hear this from time to time. I heard this in my old church more often than not. Brother, I simply want a fresh experience of God.
00:29:25
Speaker
You heard somebody say that? I can't wait to have a fresh experience of God. And I go, amen to that. You know what? Open your Bible.
00:29:38
Speaker
Open your Bible. Brothers and sisters, if you want to experience God firsthand, this is how he speaks to you and I today. It's the normative way that God speaks to you and I today. It's through his word.
00:29:51
Speaker
and and And what I have experienced over time is people who who don't go to God's word first but are looking for some feeling or some emotion to be drawn up within them, these are the flock that get led astray when when there's no need for it This is the flock that starts hearing a very new age message that says, maybe you don't have to study God's word, maybe maybe the preacher just has to teach it to you.
Modern Distractions from Faith
00:30:22
Speaker
Brothers sisters, the reason I teach or preach, however you want to call it, directly from God's word is I want you to go home Sunday and look at exactly what I taught and keep me honest.
00:30:33
Speaker
If you want to experience God, you simply need to open up his word. I put, there's never been a time that I didn't want to hear that i didn't hear from God when I placed say myself at the feet of Jesus in obedience and I earnestly met to study his word. He is always faithful to speak.
00:30:53
Speaker
Always. starts with opening the Bible. It starts with an open, receptive heart. And it's ah it's ah an opportunity to simply... Get quiet and get with God's word is what I put in here. Second, if you want to experience God, look for him in the everyday. That was what I also put.
00:31:09
Speaker
You simply need to step outside and look at the beautiful flowers that Tom and Dottie have prepared for us right out here. They are simply taking God's handiwork and putting it on display for you and I today.
00:31:21
Speaker
I often just come in the mornings when the sun comes through the stained glass windows and I think, thank you Lord for, this is going to sound silly, the stained glass windows. How beautiful is that? Everybody turn and look.
00:31:33
Speaker
How great that is By the way, that's God's handiwork too. Brothers you and I can look as you go out into nature, as you go out here in Cameron and you walk around like Kim and I do through the cemetery of all places. That's our favorite walking path, by the way.
00:31:50
Speaker
God's beauty. We saw a whole, and it's not a flock. i don't even know what you call a bunch of deer. what do you call those? I don't know. We saw a whole bunch of deer running across in the in the cemetery the other day. It was fantastic. We we just froze and they all just...
00:32:03
Speaker
And I thought to myself, how wonderful, God. Thank you for that. You can find God in the everyday tasks. You can find him, believe or not, when you're driving to work and you shut off the radio and you shut off the navigation system and you simply listen.
00:32:20
Speaker
You can do it in silent prayer. You can do it while you're washing dishes.
00:32:26
Speaker
It's when you pause. What gets in the way of this? What gets in the way of us experiencing God Well, like like I said, Brother Wes kind of already... by but By the way, Wes had all the four D's or something today. He was on fire.
00:32:41
Speaker
Boom, boom, boom, all these D words. i i I had this earlier in the week. I should have called Wes. He would have saved me ton of time in preparation.
00:32:51
Speaker
Distractions. What pulls us away from experiencing God firsthand? What pulls you away from this? the distractions. Distractions.
00:33:02
Speaker
Digital distractions. I'll be more specific. Social media, emails, news apps. All these things that draw us away from spending time.
Returning to Genuine Worship
00:33:13
Speaker
You know, I'm going to get to to study my Bible. Boy, I've got to check that news app first in the morning. I've got find out what's going on in Cameron. Oh, it's still hot and there's no rain?
00:33:24
Speaker
Oh. All right, let me get to God's Word now. Or do we wake up and the first thing is, boy, I can't wait to grab my coffee and jump into God's Word. There's all these things that are drawing us, that are pulling us, that are distracting us.
00:33:38
Speaker
Those things, brothers and sisters, even if they start out being something good, like, well, I can't wait to jump on Facebook and see my grandkids, see what they're doing, that picture. That thing that starts out good can become the thing.
00:33:52
Speaker
And when it becomes the thing, it becomes the idol. It becomes the the lowercase g in your life. That God which you serve.
00:34:03
Speaker
I also put, it's just busyness and over-scheduling distract us from from this. You know, it's like these days, this is the go-to thing to say.
00:34:16
Speaker
Like it makes you important when somebody says, hey, oh hey what have you guys been up to? I've been so what? Busy. Like it's a pat on our back. Woo, man, im God's got me working. I am busy.
00:34:30
Speaker
And I think to myself, really? Are you too busy for this?
00:34:35
Speaker
Are you too busy out with other commitments? Softball, soccer, you name it, football. oh He said football.
00:34:45
Speaker
Those two can become distractions. Then I just put, we have to be real careful about materialism. Worldly desires, things that want to draw us further and further away from God's word.
00:34:59
Speaker
Entertainment falls in this. Somehow competing with the Joneses falls in with this. Desire to create a false sense of fulfillment, because that's all idol worship really is. It's, I want to find some fulfillment. I want to fill that Worship desire that's God placed inside of me. I want to keep putting it in.
00:35:21
Speaker
By the way, if you've ever had anybody that's a successful athlete, successful businessman, when they've reached the pinnacle of what they're trying to do, almost all of them say this. It's so lonely.
00:35:34
Speaker
Because that's what they've been feeling for so many years, trying to get this sense of fulfillment. Instead, that idol, that lowercase g, can never fulfill. Only the Lord our God can.
00:35:51
Speaker
I just want to end with this. it's ah It's a visual.
00:36:00
Speaker
I'll do it slower.
00:36:07
Speaker
It's a picture repentance this week. Whatever this is that's drawing you away from God's word, It's time to let that go.
00:36:18
Speaker
time to turn our back on that. It's time to turn our focus back to Jesus. Amen.