The Causes and Cure for Spiritual Inconsistency, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. When you love something passionately, you are jealous for its affection. God is jealous to be our only God, to be our only real object of worship because He passionately loves us and He knows what is good for us.

The opposite of love would be apathy. God is angry because He was passionately in love with us the way the Father loves a son and the way that the husband loves a bride. Hey, welcome back for another week of teaching here on Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer of the Summit Church in Raleigh, North Carolina.

As always, I'm your host Molly Vidovich. We're glad to have you along for today's study in the book of Judges. This new series is called Broken Saviors. You know, as flawed human beings, sometimes we get complacent about following God and our failures defeat us and before long we begin to compromise and let things slide. Today on Summit Life, Pastor J.D. explains how we can find power and freedom in following Christ. If you missed the beginning of this sermon, I just wanted to remind you that you can always hear previous broadcasts at our website jdgreer.com. He titled today's message The Causes and Cure for Spiritual Inconsistency.

So let's get started. The book of Judges is somewhat like a museum of Israel's spiritual history, particularly the first two chapters that we're going to look at today because in them you're going to see a snapshot of Israel's rather rocky history with God. You're going to see Israel go up and down in their faith. You're going to see how they're sometimes hot, sometimes cold.

Most often they're just lukewarm. There are certain temptations that no matter how hard they try, they just can't seem to shake them. As you read Judges chapter 1, we are lulled into sympathy with the Israelites. We are told they could not drive out the Canaanites and we are inclined to agree. They did their best and they found a more economical solution to boot. They got some free labor out of the deal.

All in all, pretty savvy if you ask me. But then comes God's assessment. Verse 2 of chapter 2, you have not obeyed my voice.

Period. Look at that. Verse 2, I brought you up from Egypt. I brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers, yet 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 side and their gods will become a snare to you.

Here is lesson number one. Small areas of disbelief produce large areas of disaster. These Canaanites that they left in the land became a thorn in the Israelite side, a source of constant warfare. Eventually some of these people, like the Philistines, would rise up and subjugate them. Israel response to God is, but God, we couldn't drive them out.

We tried. God says, actually, it's not that you can't. It's that you won't.

It has nothing to do with you not being strong enough because it's never been about your strength. It has only to do with you not being confident enough in my grace. Israel's compromise started with a failure of belief.

All sins start with a failure of belief. Again, you got to start seeing your life like the unconquered promised land of Canaan. Lurking in every crevice of your heart are your own little Canaanites of unbelief and sin. You got to send out warriors of faith to subjugate them, which is why we say you got to preach the gospel to every part of your life, to your worries, your ambitions, your goals, your temptations, your security, your needs. You got to drive out the enemy from your heart because those areas of unconquered territory become the means by which the enemy enslaves you.

Well, it gets worse. Verse 12, chapter 2, after the people of Israel abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, they went after other gods. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he gave them over to plunderers who plundered them because that's what plunderers do. Israel started to go after the gods of the people around them and those people enslaved them. Number two, we choose, we must choose between the God who saves and gods that enslave.

If there were ever a place in the Bible that demonstrated that sin leads to slavery, this would be it. You give yourself to an idol because it promises you power and freedom. If you want a definition of an idol, there it is.

An idol is anything that promises power and freedom and happiness apart from God, but what it does is put you in chains. Back in those days, it was the promise of security. It was the promise of rain. Now, it would be something for us like money. Money says to us, I can give you power and freedom. If you have enough of me, you have all the power you need, you have all the freedom you need. So you give yourself to pursue it, but you never seem to have enough. And it destroys your family, then it destroys your integrity, then it destroys your health, and it is always demanding more.

It promised power and freedom and happiness, yet you were never satisfied. You're always jealous. You're constantly worried. This is not the life of a free man. This is the life of a slave. You gave your life to build your reputation because you thought you would have power and freedom and happiness when you could walk in a room and everyone said, well, there is so-and-so and he or she is just awesome. But instead of finding that power and freedom, you became really sensitive to criticism. You became obsessive of what people thought about you.

You were always bitter that people don't recognize your full worth or the accolades that you think belong to you get put on to someone else. That is not the life of a free man. That is the life of a slave. Well, in contrast to these false gods that enslaved them, the writer of Judges gives you a glimpse into the heart of Israel's God.

Now, I warn you, it's a little unusual, so I need you to follow me through it. Verse 14, so the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he gave them over to plunderers and they were in terrible distress. Then the Lord raised up judges who saved them out of the land of those who plundered them. There are three things in those verses that reveal God's heart toward his people, a heart of passionate love. The first stage of those three stages is anger, which is why I said it might be a little unusual. But make no mistake, God is righteously angry at sin and that's because God is a jealous God and he is jealously angry over our betrayal because jealousy is a necessary part of love. When you love something passionately, you are jealous for its affection. You may have heard that the opposite of love is not anger.

The opposite of love is apathy. If God did not love us, he would not care. But because God does love us, there is a jealousy that he extends to us that when we betray him, there is a righteous anger. A lot of people don't understand God's jealousy because they think of jealousy like we mean when we say that somebody else has something that you want and so you hate him for it or you're just obsessive about somebody's attention. But there's a good jealousy. There's a jealousy that is a natural part of love. I am right to be jealous over the affection of my wife. I want her affections to center on me and not on another man.

That is as much for her good and my family's good as it is mine. Now obviously it is possible to be way obsessive about that, but that's not what God is. God is jealous to be our only God, to be our only real object of worship because he passionately loves us and he knows what is good for us.

The opposite of love would be apathy. God is angry because he was passionately in love with us the way the father loves a son and the way that the husband loves a bride. So God is angry.

But then do you notice what happened next? He feels pity. He sees them in distress. Verse 18 says he was moved to pity because of their groaning. By the way, the word for groaning there in Hebrew doesn't mean repentance.

It just means a cry of misery. It moves God emotionally to see his people hurting even though they had brought that suffering on themselves and they weren't sorry for it yet. But it's like me seeing one of my children in suffering even if it's their fault. It doesn't make me cease to love them.

In fact, if anything, it makes me love them more. So God sees them and before they cry out for repentance, he acts. He sends judges. Verse 16, he raises up judges to deliver them and that's the rest of the book of Judges.

Ah, but you see there's a dilemma. These judges are going to turn out to be broken people themselves. They're going to see they're going to fall prey to the same problems Israel had. They are inconsistent, unbelieving, cowardly, greedy, rash, immoral. So there's a question that begins to emerge from the book of Judges and it's this. How can these men and women be Israel's saviors when they themselves need to be saved?

How can they deliver us when they got things they need to be delivered from themselves? How can they save us when they got the same problems that we have? I've used this story with you before but I think it illustrates it well. A true story I heard about a grandmother in California who looks out of her back window in her house and sees to her horror her two-year-old granddaughter stumble into the deep end of the pool. She rushes out to save her granddaughter.

Three hours later the EMS pulls out the bodies of both the grandmother and the granddaughter out of the pool because the grandmother couldn't swim either. The one who would do the saving can't have the same problem as those who need to be saved. The ones who would save us can't have the same issues as we have otherwise how could they actually be our savior? That's why every other religion in the world doesn't work for me y'all because the people that are claiming to do the saving have the same problems of those of us who need to be saved.

I got two problems. One, I need to be delivered from sin. Two, I die. So if somebody's going to save me they can't have a sinful heart and die. Buddha may have taught some good things but he died.

Muhammad may have taught some good things but he died. If somebody's going to save me they're going to have to live a sinless life and to be able to come back from the dead and there's only one person in history who's done that and that's our savior. So the book of Judges sets up this question that points you to the story of another judge whose story is not going to be recorded in Judges. Furthermore there's another dilemma presented in Judges and that is if you read the first two chapters God appears to be on the horns of a dilemma from two contradictory promises that he made.

Did you catch this? Verse one, I swore to give that land to your fathers. I will, what's that next word? Never break my covenant with you. Ah but verse 15, I'm going to reword this but this is essentially what God says, I have sworn to punish injustice in sin because I'm a just and righteous God. He uses that word swear again. Well how can God keep both of those promises? How can God say that he will never break his covenant with us but also be a God who has sworn to punish injustice? You see the dilemma? Well the answer is that God is going to send a judge that is going to both deliver us from our enemies and he is going to suffer the punishment for our disobedience. We'll return to our teaching in just a moment but I wanted to tell you about our new featured resource this month. When faced with difficult questions we all need to be able to give a reason for the hope we have in Jesus and put us in the right place.

And by tackling some of these difficult questions in our new book we hope to equip you with answers that make sense and aren't overly complicated. In Honest Questions Quick Answers we'll address questions like if a child wanders from the faith is it the parents fault? And how do you know you're growing as a disciple of Jesus? It comes with your gift to the ministry right now so give us a call at 866-335-5220 jdgrier.com.

Now let's get back to the conclusion of today's teaching. Here's Pastor JD. Throughout this passage God keeps referring back to a covenant that he made with Israel. Let me quickly take you back to one of the first places where God makes this covenant because I want to show you something absolutely fascinating about it that will help you understand the rest of the book of Judges. The situation is when God makes the promise to Abraham in Genesis 15. That's one of the first places he made this covenant that he keeps referring to. You don't need to turn there in your Bible.

I'll summarize it for you. God makes a promise to Abraham that his descendants are going to be his people forever and that Abraham's response is we're going to follow you forever. So Abraham and God are going to solemnize the covenant through an ancient ritual called the cleaving of the animals.

Now it's a little gross by our standards but it worked like this. You would cut five animals in half. You would lay the halves of their body in two rows so that their blood flowed into the middle and formed this river of blood. Then the two people making the covenant would put their arms around each other and walk through the blood so that the blood was splashing up on their robes basically signifying that if I don't keep my part of the covenant this is what will happen to me, this blood splatter. So right before Abraham and God get ready to go into this covenant together, Genesis 15 says a deep sleep falls upon Abraham and God comes down and Abraham's laying there in a deep sleep but this doesn't stop God from going through the middle of the animals. God goes through by himself and what God was showing to Abraham is I'm not only going to be responsible for my side of the covenant, I'm going to be responsible for yours. Not only will I shed my blood if I fail to keep my part, I'll shed my blood if you fail to keep your part. This is a promise that God is going to ensure the fulfillment of all by himself. You see that deep sleep that Abraham fell into commentators point out that that symbolizes the deep sleep of sin, the slavery of sin that we would put ourselves into. God says but I set my love on you and I made this promise by myself so I'll pay the price for your disobedience and then I'll pursue you when you don't pursue me.

I'll draw you to myself. I'll seek you before you seek me and then I'll sustain you by my grace. When you are faithless, I'll be faithful. I'll persevere with you to the end and I'll promise that the good work that I began in you I will complete it until the day of redemption.

That's the message of the book of Judges is that God is faithful when you are not. That's the message of it. So listen, I know that some of you feel weak. I know that you feel like you can't overcome a certain temptation.

I know you feel like you'll never make it. God says but I determined it. You weren't there when I made the promise. You didn't hang on the cross helping me pay the penalty for your sin.

You didn't help bring Jesus back from the dead. I did all that by myself and so I will see it through to the end. What I have determined will come to pass. So the message of the book of Judges is first to rest. Rest in the promises of God that he that has began a good work in you will complete it.

He will never let you go any more than I would let one of my children go. The book of Judges says you rest in the promises of God because what God determined he will bring to pass. The writer of Judges says you got to choose between these two types of gods. You choose the gods that enslave or you choose the god that saves. You choose a god that will put you in chains or a god that will love you like a father, a god that will pursue you like a husband, a god that will love you and forgive you when you turn your back on him. Some of you are making that very decision. This weekend you've got to choose which god you will worship. Some of you say well I just choose neither. I'm just not that religious of a person. No, it's like I always explain to you the human heart doesn't give you that option.

It's like breathing. You are an instinctive worshiper. You could no more turn off your drive to worship by not being religious than you could turn off your sex drive by not getting married. Your soul will always find something to cherish. Something upon which to build your identity. Something that you determine will give you happiness and power and freedom and peace and security. The question as I often tell you is not if you'll worship. The question is only what you will worship. If you give yourself to the gods of the Canaanites which may have a different form today but they're the same things.

Money, fame, security, romance, family, respect. You will become a slave to those things. But if you give yourself to God, this god that's depicted in Judges, you will find the most satisfying, freeing, forgiving, victorious love ever known.

It's like Tim Keller says, Jesus is the only God who if you find him will satisfy you and if you fail him will forgive you. If you run from him he'll pursue you. Which brings me to the third and final thing that these chapters teach us. Number three, amnesia leads to apostasy. Amnesia leads to apostasy. Did you notice that when God confronts them, do you notice what he says in chapter two?

I'm the god that brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Why does he start there? Did they not know that? Does he need to distinguish it? No, of course they knew that. It's just that they were no longer thinking about them, those things. Again in chapter two, look down in verse 10, there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or remember the mighty things that he had done for Israel.

What did he mean? Have this generation never heard of the Passover? Have they never heard about the Red Sea? They never heard about the walls of Jericho? Of course they had.

They knew those stories. Listen, the word no in Hebrew, the word that's used there, the word yada, has sexual connotations to it. Adam knew his wife Eve which means he had sex with his wife.

To say that they knew they did not know the Lord means they may have known about him here but they never learned to trust him and cherish him and so there arose a generation that was not intimately familiar with these things and these things were no longer precious to them. That's why God starts by reasoning with them. He says, I brought you up out of Egypt. If I knocked the walls down in Jericho, don't you think I could handle these Canaanites?

If I split the Red Sea and defeated the most powerful army in the world, don't you think I could conquer these little bands of people everywhere? Let me ask you a question. I want you to really think about it. Why would you trust God with your eternal salvation and then not trust him with your day-to-day life? Why would you believe? You say, I believe he paid for my sin but I don't believe that he can take care of the needs that I have in the future. A God that you can trust with your eternity is certainly a God that you can trust with your budget. A God that you believe suffered the penalty of sin in your place is a God that you can believe will provide for you emotionally, will provide for you in your marriage, will provide for you in your parenting.

If he did not withhold the greater, surely he will not withhold the lesser. You've got to think about that. Then parents, you've got to teach these things to your children. Parents, I want you to consider this. In one generation, one, you go from a group of people who saw God knock the walls down to a generation that doesn't even know God at all.

One generation, that's how fast it is. Parents, if I could be the voice of your children for a minute. If your children could suddenly get a perspective on life and speak with an adult voice, they would probably say something to you like this, Mom and Dad, you are the only one that can teach me to know these things, to think that they are precious. Yeah, I can learn about them at church but you're the one that's got to show me what they look like. You ain't got to show me what it means to trust you. I've got to see him reflected in your priorities. I've got to see him reflected in how you pray. I've got to hear it in your passion. When I look at how you structure my life, I've got to be able to tell that God is the priority and that he's most important.

I've often said this to our parents, and I don't say this to smack you in the face, I just want you to be sober about this, that based on how you set your kids extracurricular activities, many of your kids could rightfully conclude that where they go to college is more important to you than where they spend eternity. Because you may say one thing with your mouth, but your life sets up a priority structure that instructs them to know money and romance and success and to only know about God in the mental sense. Well, when God said these things to Israel in chapter two, the people began to weep. They looked with regret at what they had done, but evidently they didn't repent. Why?

Because nothing changed. You see, I know that there are people who even right now you listen to me and there's a sense of regret. Weeping is good and repentance is better. Repentance means that you change.

Repentance means that you begin to look into the unconquered territories of your heart and you send out gospel warriors to preach the gospel over your worries, over your fears, over your ambitions, over your goals. You say, God, search me and know me. Show me what areas I've never learned to trust you in. Where am I worried? God, can I trust you there?

Where do I have idols? Will I submit to you there? That's what it means to repent. As a family, your repentance may look like, God, we need to rearrange our priorities.

We need to rethink our budget. We need to make the people of God the center of our community. It's like I often say, the church needs to be not an event you attend on the weekend. It needs to be a community that you belong to that reflects your priorities and the value you give to God.

I don't know where it is, but I have a sense that the Holy Spirit is saying the same thing to many of us that he said to the children of Israel. And you have a chance to make a choice they didn't make or they refuse to make. And that is to actually follow God and see this victory, this abundant life that he wants to bring into you. But it starts with a decision of faith. It starts with repentance. So bow your heads if you would. And I'm just going to turn this over to the real preacher of the Summit Church. It is the Holy Spirit. And I just want him to give you a minute to call out things in your heart. Let him right now bring up two or three things into your heart that he just wants to identify and say, there, there. This is an area you don't trust me.

Where is that? I will say this. There are many of you in here that have never begun this relationship with Jesus. It doesn't begin with you promising to be better. It begins with you understanding that God is a Savior who did your salvation all by himself. And he offers it to you as a gift if you'll receive it.

You can't save yourself. Jesus did. He says, if you will receive me to as many as receive me, I'll give you the power to become the sons of God. It's repentance and faith. Repentance means you surrender control to him and you receive him personally as your Savior.

If you've never done that, you do it right in this moment. It's not enough to hear God's word. A true believer hears the word and takes action. You're listening to J.D.

Greer and Summit Life. We're looking at the book of Judges and some pretty strange stories, right, J.D.? Yeah. You know, Molly, this is one of my favorite series. You're going to find, let's just go ahead and say it, some of the most scandalous and outright weird stories in the entire Bible. But through this scandalous series, you're going to find that you're going to find that you're going to find that you're going to find that you're going to find that you're going to find that you're going to find out exactly what God could do with the most broken of heroes. And our prayers is that through this series, you will see that behind every broken hero is a God who remains faithful, even when we're faithless. The real hero in the book of Judges is not Samson and it's not Gideon.

The real hero is going to be the Messiah, Jesus that they're pointing to. And so we've created a new resource for you this month that also covers some, well, let's just say it. Strange, but brutally honest topics like the ones we find in the book of Judges. I think you'll find a lot of things in this volume or questions that you've heard or questions you've considered. So let's make sure that you get that soon. Honest questions, quick answers, volume two is yours when you give right now to support this ministry. You'll also have a chance to get volume one if you missed it a couple of years ago.

Call 866-335-5220 or give online and request your copy at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch. Join us again tomorrow when Pastor J.D. Greer presents a message with an unusual title, Southpaw Savior. That's Tuesday on Summit Life. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.