How'd We Get Here?

All right. Well, good morning everybody. It’s a sweet sound listening to everybody meet and greet those around us. What a good time that is.

Also a sweet sound hearing those conversations come to a close. That’s nice, too. We appreciate that.

Hey, I want to introduce you to a buddy of mine. If you haven’t had the opportunity to meet Mr. Robbie Cranford here, man, you are missing out. He’s a great guy. Obviously, sharply dressed, drives a sweet car, but more than any of that, he’s just a great guy that I’ve become friends with over the past eight months or so.

I want to share something. Since January of 2024, Al, the deacons, myself have been praying for him. We didn’t know him at that time. We just believed that God wanted Sauldam to have some sort of niche in our community, some sort of way of ministering to the needs of the hurting around us. We prayed and we prayed asking God, please send us the person. We believe You’re doing something. We know there’s a need around us. Just give us the person. And lo and behold, over a year after we began praying, God gave us the guy.

In Ephesians chapter 4, the Apostle Paul says this: that the one who descended, Jesus, is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens to fill everything. Jesus Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with the stature measured by Christ’s fullness.

This morning we celebrate not just God hand selecting Michael to lead the music ministry for our church, but this morning we also celebrate God hand selecting Robbie to lead a new ministry for us called Celebrate Recovery. Celebrate Recovery. Robbie is going to tell you a little bit more about it here in a minute.

The greatest image I can give you for what this ministry he’s going to detail can provide for our church, it’s like this. Imagine you’re in a desert. You’ve been walking and you are just looking for water somewhere. You know, if you don’t get that water soon, it’s all over. The vultures are circling. The sun is beating down and all of a sudden, you just kind of happen on a stream of cool water.

Jesus Himself said in John chapter 3 that anyone who places their faith in Jesus Christ for salvation, He would place streams of living water inside of them so that through them God’s kindness and His love and His life would flow into a dead and dying and thirsty world. Celebrate Recovery has the power of being a stream of cool water for thirsty, dying people all around us.

So Robbie, can you please tell us how did you first learn about Celebrate Recovery yourself?

Yeah, it was just simply by word of mouth. I was in a dark place in my life and I ran into a lot of you people know him, Randy Braxton, at a Food Lion of all places and yeah, you know, I just told him what I was going through and that I knew I needed something. I just didn’t know what it was. And he offered for me to come and join him at Celebrate Recovery at James Island Baptist. And man, it was a game changer, you know. I just, I owe Celebrate Recovery my life. Yeah, it was good. I’ve been through different programs before, but the norm in your typical program is just they base their belief on a higher power. That could be anything. I mean, it could be a doorknob. And Celebrate Recovery is all about Jesus Christ and how, I mean, you all know anything is possible through Him and He…

That’s right.

It’s just been a total game changer for me. It’s given me a whole new purpose. Look, if two and a half years ago, if I would have pictured myself up here talking to y’all, man, I’d have thought I was crazy, you know? So…

You still are.

Yeah. It’s, man, it’s just…

What you’re doing right now is the number one fear for most of the people watching us. So…

Oh yeah. If you can’t tell, I’m shaking.

Yeah, that’s right. [snorts] Tell us who is Celebrate Recovery for, Robbie.

Man, it’s for anyone. Anyone and everyone. Anyone that, we all live in sin. I mean, you name it, there’s…

A laundry list of problems that people face every day: codependency, anger issues, obviously alcoholic and substance abuse, marriage counseling. I mean, you name it. The list goes on and on. If you can imagine you’re struggling with something, come to Celebrate Recovery and we can talk about it.

That’s right. And in your own opinion—I got to share some of mine, but in your own opinion—why does our community need Celebrate Recovery?

Well, I was talking with some people this past Friday. I went to the Celebrate Recovery in Northwoods Baptist, and I was talking to an older couple there, and they were interested in coming because there’s not a lot of Celebrate Recovery in this area. You know, I had to go all the way to James Island every Sunday just to go, and there’s a lot of people out here that I think would benefit from it just for the location purposes. You know, they said they knew people in Walterboro that wanted to come. They weren’t willing to go all the way to North Charleston just to go.

Yeah.

Or James Island. You know, not a lot of traffic out here. That’s a plus.

That’s right.

You know, this just—it’s going to bring people from all around.

Just because we’re out here and people need it.

Man. So, you might be listening to this and you might have some background understanding or awareness of Celebrate Recovery. It’s aimed at serving anybody who is struggling with any number of what they call hurts, habits, and hang-ups. You know, we sometimes think about recovery programs as purely being for the guy that’s strung out on drugs and he’s got $10 left to his name. Yeah. But Celebrate Recovery is also for us people who might look like we have our lives together, but man, we really, like you said, struggle with anger. We struggle with pride. We struggle with wanting things, or our families are always dysfunctional. If you want to grow in 2026 and become a more Christ-centered, healthier person, then may I encourage you to chat with Robbie after the service. We are launching Celebrate Recovery the first Sunday of February. That’s February 1st at 6:00 p.m. here at the church building. So the month of January, we are going to spend our congregational prayer time praying for Robbie and Celebrate Recovery. So what I want you to do is grab your neighbor. Let’s pray for Robbie and pray for this new ministry, that God would establish it and use it to help man just recover and push back the darkness in our area. You guys take it away. I’ll put a bow on it.

Thank you. Good job. Holy Spirit, thank You so much. Thank You for Your work. Thank You for giving our church this burden to just minister to the needs of this community. Lord, thank You for even geographically where You’ve put us. God, it’s kind of crazy to me that there is nothing south of North Charleston that’s like this. There’s nothing west of James Island like this. But Lord, before time, You had Your sights set on this little church at 5945 County Line Road out toward whatever area this is, God. And You said, “That’s where I’m going to do it.” Thank You. Praise be to Your name, God. Praise Your name for saving Robbie, for introducing him to Celebrate Recovery through Randy. God, getting his life totally turned around and giving him, Lord, a burden to give away what You gave him. Lord, it would have been easy for Robbie to just kind of sit back and say, “I got mine.” But Lord, he wants to be a channel of that living water. He wants to give it away. He doesn’t just want to hoard it for himself. And I pray, God, as he pursues that, Lord, that You would, Holy Spirit, protect that man. Satan hates him. Satan hates what he wants to do. Satan hates us. He hates what is going on here. We need Your protection. We need Your presence to go before and behind us. We trust, though, in the promises of Scripture that that is exactly what You will do. God, I pray that You would provide everything this ministry needs, Lord. From someone to coordinate snacks to people to facilitate conversations, Lord, somebody to lead the worship for that ministry, and for others to watch the children for the child care. Dear God, I pray that You would provide all those needs. I trust You will. You provided Robbie to lead it. Why would You not also provide all the other helpers? And you’re going to do something right now in the next few minutes, too. Holy Spirit, I just trust You’re going to grab these next few minutes, and You’re going to do something that we can only explain was You. Please do it. Amen. Amen.

If Celebrate Recovery seems enticing to you either to serve in or to attend, then I would encourage you use your connect card. You just write Celebrate Recovery and in the notes just put serve or put attend and just drop that in the offering plate at the end of the service or just bring it to me and to Robbie. And man, we can be pretty discreet about it if that feels weird for you and just want to make sure you get to the right place. Like we said, this is this is for all of us. So man, just like, but I have no shame in that.

In light of new new music ministry, new ministries, also just one more new thing before we get to a new preaching series. I just want to let everybody in on some of y’all are keen to the rumor. Well, at this point we just make it public knowledge. I need prayer because God has given us a fourth beautiful baby. So may just yeah, celebrate that. Yeah.

Becca was serving, I guess I could tell this. Becca was serving with a student ministry. They’re getting they’re on their way back from their beach retreat and a couple of the adults and the students were observing Becca saying, “Is she pregnant?” Kudos to them for like talking amongst themselves. I don’t know. One of the students looks at the adult and says, “Probably, [laughter] man.” And so we’re super excited about that.

I told somebody the other day, it’s like it’s not like we get too much sleep, but it’s just God’s plan for us right now. And that’s just kind of where we’re at. I would actually appreciate a lot of your prayer because as a dad, I man, I already feel a bit stretched. I already find myself in these moments where, man, like I’ve been overstimulated by all the wonderful, beautiful requests that I get. I mean, like, joking aside, for real.

Like the other night, Becca’s serving and she’s doing the student ministry thing. So, I’ve got the kids and man, like I just I just kind of lose it. I’m so frustrated with all the requests, all the interruptions, all the noise and man, I just find myself like saying things to the kids and doing things and all of a sudden the emotional temperature in the house, man, it goes real icy. And the kids who felt so confident to run up and just kind of scream their desires at me, now we’re kind of shrinking back into the shadows of the house. And I look around and I literally asked myself this question. How do we get here, man? 10 minutes ago, I’m doing Legos on the floor with my son and right now he has literally like escaped my presence. How’d we get here?

Anybody else get to these moments in life? It may not be with young kids, but you might get to a moment and you’re like, man, how did I get here? For you, man, it might look like you you’re in like a hospital bed and you are physically recovering from another mistake that you’ve made or someone else’s mistake and you’re looking around and you hear the beeping and you’re like, “Dude, how’d I get here?”

Or maybe you get to the end of the month and you’re looking at all the bank statements. You’re looking at all the bills and you’re looking at how much money is left in the bank account and you’re not sure that you’re going to make it to the next month, let alone to the next financial goal. And you look around and you’re like, “Man, I’m sitting under crushing debt. How did I get here?”

Or we just went through a couple different holidays where families are getting together and maybe you’re you spent the holidays mostly by yourself or you spent the holidays feeling like you were trapped with people that you no longer get along with, you no longer like and you’re just feeling the tension of holidays and family and you’re like, “How did we get here?”

Man, one of the things I love about the Bible is that the Bible does not shy away from that. The Bible does not read like a fairy tale where everything begins or rather it does begin beautifully and it does end beautifully. But fairy tales have a way of kind of Painting over the hard stuff. The Bible’s grittier than that. It could be darker than that. It’s much more real than that. And this morning, we’re going to start a series through the book of Judges in the Old Testament that’s got all of that in spades.

There’s a guy named Samuel. He is around; he is living during the lifetime of the first king of Israel, a guy named Saul. Samuel is looking at the kingdom, which is still failing to occupy all of the promised land that God had promised to Israel. He is looking at a group of people who still don’t love God the way God says they’re supposed to love Him. And he’s looking at maybe himself. And I think Samuel is wondering, “How did we get here?” Man, these incredible promises to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob and the others. And yet, the day-to-day experience of our life as a nation is honestly kind of lacking. How did we get here?

We’re going to look at a book in the Old Testament that explains not just the Old Testament, but it also helps explain your life. Here’s the fact of the matter. Whether it’s getting upset with young kids or it’s sitting under crushing debt or you’re finding yourself at the bottom of another bottle trying to escape something, we all get to these moments where we look around and we’re like, “How did I get here?” This morning, we’re going to look at a book of the Bible that helps explain that.

Let me give you a little bit of timeline and some background to the book of Judges. By the way, if you’re still learning the road map of your physical Bible, Judges is pretty easy to find. Just put it in your lap, cover up, you just open it up. You’re going to get to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, the book of Joshua, and then you’re going to land in Judges. And if your Bible has one of those little ribbons, just go ahead and put the ribbon in Judges because we’ll be here for the next few months.

The timeline of the Old Testament roughly goes like this. God calls a guy named Abraham, and I’m skipping so much already. God calls a guy named Abraham and says, “I’m going to make you a great nation. I’m going to bring you to a promised land. I’m going to make your people great, and through you, I’m going to bless the entire world.” That happens at about 2100 BC.

Abraham has a son named Isaac. Isaac has a son named Jacob. Jacob’s name gets changed to Israel, and he becomes the father of who we now refer to as Israel. Israel the man has 12 sons. One of them, his name is Joseph. Joseph is the guy that goes ahead of all the other brothers into Egypt because they sell him into slavery. But Joseph sitting in Egypt, he’s become the second in charge of the entire nation. He’s looking at his brothers who sold him into slavery. And he says, “What you meant for evil, selling me into slavery, God meant for good because God sent me on ahead of you to provide a way for our entire people to be taken care of.”

After Joseph comes a guy named Moses. You see, Moses grows up in the Pharaoh’s household through some other circumstances. And God eventually uses the man Moses to deliver the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt back to the promised land where Abraham was supposed to go the entire time. Moses comes to lead Israel at about 1446 BC. And he’s the guy that says, “Let my people go.”

After Moses, you see, Moses gets Israel out of Egypt, but Moses does not get Israel into the promised land. He just gets them to the doorstep. After Moses comes a guy named Joshua. He is Moses’s assistant. Joshua is the one who is supposed to take Israel into the promised land. The issue is there’s people living there. So Joshua has to lead the nation of Israel to take it over, to conquer all of the promised land.

After the book of Joshua comes the period of the judges. The period of the judges is about 350 years. What we’re going to take about five and a half or six months to cover is a time frame or a time span of 350 years. In the time of the judges, we’ll read this multiple times: there was no king.

See, the book of Judges is a transition book. It transitions us as readers from what you call the patriarchs, the fathers of Egypt, the fathers of Israel, to the kings, Saul, David, Solomon. That’s what happens in this intermediate time. The book of Judges happens before the kings. It happens before the temple is built, and it happens before you have this massive nation of Israel. The title of this book comes from a group of people that God would call to lead Israel. These were deliverers. The word judge describes the activity of these people—not to sit in a courtroom and decide legal cases, but to become military social leaders for a group of Israelites at a certain time. Usually, these judges were called to deal with a specific problem at a specific time.

What we’ll see happen in this book is that the people of God, the Israelites, the Jewish people, they will fall into sin, fall into oppression by the people that were already living in the land, start to call out to God for His help and His mercy. God will hear them and raise up a judge. That judge will deliver them from that enemy and will help them follow Him again. That judge will die, and you go back to the beginning. Wash, rinse, repeat over and over again. The book of Judges is just a cycle. It’s 400ish years of God’s people honestly getting it wrong, getting it wrong, getting it wrong.

Now, let me give you a little warning specifically for parents. The content in the book of Judges is gritty. It’s real. There’s some PG-13 moments. I believe in the church, we ought to lead the way with having these conversations with our kids. However, as a parent, if you are concerned or at least curious about the topics that I will be addressing in the book, see me after this, and I’ll give you my entire preaching calendar, and you will know exactly what’s going to come up in the content in the book each week. Okay? That’s my offer to you.

Now, you need to know something as you are reading the Bible. When something is included in the Bible, that does not mean that God supports it. Okay? We will see things be included in this book—murder, adultery, and the like—that God doesn’t love. But the Bible’s real. We can trust it. And because it has this stuff, we have to know how you deal with that.

Now, the book of Judges serves a couple different purposes. And after this, we’re going to get into the content. Humanly speaking, the book of Judges shows that the nation of Israel, they need some form of worship leadership because they fail to obey God’s covenant. They are failing to worship Him. They need something. They need someone to unite them as people under God’s leadership. Like I already said, Judges transitions us from the story of conquering the promised land to the kingdom of Israel.

Finally, though, what’s most important is that Judges reveals God’s persistent kindness for His people despite their idolatry. As we are reading the book of Judges, there will be a phrase that comes up time and time again: the people did what was right in their own eyes, and they did not do what was—or they did what was evil in God’s eyes. The story of Judges honestly is the story of me a couple nights ago yelling at my kids, wondering, “How’d I get here?” The story of Judges, if I could be frank, is the story of Robbie getting to a place a couple years ago where he’s like, “I need some help because my way is not working.” The story of Judges is you getting yourself under a mountain of crushing debt, wondering, “How do I get out of this?” That’s the story of Judges.

Judges begins after the death of a man named Joshua with a major question. Look at it with me. This is Judges chapter 1, verses 1 and 2. After the death of the Israelites inquired of the Lord, “Who will be the first to fight for us against the Canaanites?” That’s the people living in the promised land. The Lord answered, “Judah is to go. I have handed the land over to him.”

It’s a major question. This is important for a couple reasons. First, look at how Israel addresses God. It says the Israelites inquired of the capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. That’s how your Bible ought to represent God’s name right there. That actually stands for the letters YHWH. We call Him Yahweh. The Old Testament Jews, without the affection for God that Jesus taught us to use, would never say the name Yahweh out loud. They would only represent it this way. The Israelites are going to the right guy. They are addressing God with This YHW. They did that also because that is God’s covenant name. When Moses said, “Who will I tell the Israelites has sent me?” At the burning bush, you remember what I’m talking about. God says, “I am who I am.” Tell them that I am has sent you. Tell them that YHW has sent you. When the people are wondering, “Who is this being?” You will tell them, “I am YHW and I am making a covenant with you. I am striking a deal with you.” The book of Judges will show a covenant keeping God stepping in to both bless and discipline His people.

But this moment is also important for us. Remember, Israel needs a leader who will fight for us, who will lead us. And the Lord answers. The Lord answers. Judah is to go. I’ve handed the land over to him. Now, it should not surprise us that God heard the cries of His people and spoke. God answered and He did it decisively. God’s not leaving the people of Israel to understand His message in their bowl of Cheerios saying, “Oo, that’s not the point here. What God is doing is God hears and then God speaks. God speaks to His people.” This is outside the message. I just want you to hear this. God speaks. He wants to speak to you. God hears every single time you pray to Him. He hears every question you ask Him. He hears every yearning and ache of your heart. And when you say, “God, how did I get here? God, where do I go from here? God wants to speak.” Chances are He is speaking. Are we listening? Are you living your life in such a way that you can hear the voice of God when He speaks to you? The 40 or so guys going through the men’s groups right now as we’re studying Experiencing God, that’s what we’re learning how to do. Man, Christians, we get tons of practice of speaking at God, but I fear we don’t get very much practice at listening to Him.

God hears the people and He speaks. And He doesn’t just say, “Here’s an option.” He’s decisive. He says, “Judah, the tribe of Judah, is to go. I have handed the land over to Him.” Look at this. God promises success. He says, “If the people of Israel do things My way, they will have the land.” Judah, the tribe, would be the first ones to go. Little bit of Bible reading tip for you here. Judah. When it says Judah or later it’ll say Simeon or Naphtali or Dan. Those are names that refer to the tribes of Israel. These were not specific men speaking. These were tribes acting as one. That’s yeah for another time. So Judah the tribe enjoys some initial success. Look at verses 3 through 18. Bit of a longer passage but you’ll get it. Judah the tribe says to his brother Simeon, another tribe, “Come with me to my allotted territory. Let’s fight against the Canaanites. I will also go with you to your allotted territory.” So Simeon went with him.

When Judah attacked, get it? The Lord handed the Canaanites and the Perizzites over to them. God kept His promise. Shouldn’t surprise us. They struck down 10,000 men in Bezek. They found Adoni-Bezek in Bezek, and they fought against him and struck down the Canaanites and the Perizzites. When Adoni-Bezek fled, middle schoolers, listen to this, they pursued him. They caught him and they cut off his thumbs and his big toes. Why is this included in the Bible? It’s fascinating. They cut off the guy’s thumbs and his big toes. Adoni-Bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and their big toes cut off used to pick up scraps under my table. God has repaid me for what I have done.” Wow. They brought him to Jerusalem and he died there.

The men of Judah fought against Jerusalem. Remember, Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel yet because David’s not the king yet. So, they have to fight against it. They have to take it. They fight against Jerusalem. They capture it. They put it to the sword and they set the city on fire. Wow. Afterward, the men of Judah marched down to fight against the Canaanites who were living in the hill country, the Negev, and the Judean foothills. Judah also marched against the Canaanites who were living in Hebron. Hebron was formerly named Kiriath-Arba. They struck down Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai. From there they marched against the residents of Debir. Debir was formerly named Kiriath-Sepher. Caleb the tribe said, “Whoever attacks and captures Kiriath-Sepher, I will give my daughter Aksah, there “Go ask him for my wife.” So Othniel, son of Kenaz, Caleb’s youngest brother, captured it, and Caleb gave his daughter Achsah to his youngest brother as his wife.

Okay, it’s odd. When she arrived, she persuaded him to ask her father for a field. As she got off her donkey, Caleb the dad said to her, “What do you want?” She answered him, “Give me a blessing. Since you’ve given me the land in the Negev, give me the springs also.” So Caleb says, “Yes, sweetheart,” and gave her both the upper and lower springs.

The descendants of the Kenite, Moses’s father-in-law, had gone up with the men of Judah from the city of Palms to the wilderness of Judah, which was in the Negev of Arad. They went to live among the people.

Judah went with his brother Simeon and struck the Canaanites who were living in Zephath and completely destroyed the town. So they named the town Hormah. Judah captured Gaza and its territory, Ashkelon and its territory, and Ekron and its territory.

All right, a lot of scripture, but you get the picture. Judah enjoys some initial success. I said it a second ago. I was reading, God is faithful to keep His promise. That should not surprise us. Judah and Simeon are faithful to their task. Again, we shouldn’t be surprised by that. We get a glimpse into what this process was like in the moments of Adoni-bezek and Othniel and his daughter. However, despite the initial success, a crack in the armor shows up. Verses 19 and 20, a crack in the armor shows up. Read it.

The Lord was with Judah and enabled them to take possession of the hill country. But oh, that’s not good. But they could not drive out the people who were living in the plain because those people had iron chariots. Judah gave Hebron to Caleb just as Moses had promised. Then Caleb drove out the three sons of Anak who lived there.

So despite the initial success, there is a crack in the armor. Despite the fact that the Lord was with the tribe of Judah, they could not, maybe chose not to, drive out everybody in the land. They left some in the hill country because of the iron chariots.

Think with me. If the almighty God of the universe personally appeared to you and gave you a job and said, “Hey, by the way, I will be with you every step of the way. My power will infuse you with power and you are guaranteed success.” Would you do what God told you to do? If God personally gave you the marching orders to accomplish His plan and said, “All of my capacities, all of my faithfulness would go with you. Just do it.” Would you do it? They didn’t. Why, man? They took their eyes off the Lord. They put their eyes on their circumstances and chose not to do it.

Man, nothing can stop God. Nothing can stop God’s plans. Nothing can stop God’s promises. Nothing can get in the way of what God wants to do except for our inability to walk with Him. God’s got promises. He’s got His presence. He’s got His power for you. He had it for the people and they chose not to walk in all of that. The issue with this conquest was not God’s ability to fight for Israel, but Israel’s inability to follow God. And this pattern will follow through the rest of the book. Despite Judah’s success to drive out the Canaanites, we will skip over that here in a second. The story of Israel is just one failure upon failure. If you’re taking notes, that’s the next stuff. The failure upon failure.

Look at your Bibles again. I’m starting in verse 21. At the same time, the Benjaminites, that’s Israelites, they didn’t drive out the Jebusites who were living in Jerusalem. The Jebusites have lived among the Benjaminites in Jerusalem to this day.

Jump down to verse 27. At that time, Manasseh failed to take possession of Beth-shean and Tanach and their surrounding villages, or the residents of Dor and En-dor and Megiddo and their surrounding villages. The Canaanites were determined to stay in the land. That’s not good. When Israel became stronger, they made the Canaanites serve as forced labor, but they never drove them out completely.

At that time, Ephraim failed to drive out the Canaanites who were living in Gezer. So the Canaanites have lived among them in Gezer. Zebulun failed to drive out the residents of Kitron or the residents of Nahalol. So the Canaanites lived among them and served as forced labor. Asher failed to drive out the residents of Acco or Sidon or Ahlab or Axib or Helba, Aphik or Reahab. The Asherites lived among the Canaanites who were living in the land because they failed to drive them out. Nahali didn’t drive out the residents of Bshamesh or the residents of B anthaites who were living in the lands. But the residents of B sheh and the bet anoth served as their forced labor.

The Amorites forced the Danites. Dan is a tribe of Israel. This isn’t just Dan failing to completely do the job. This is the Amorites smacking them in the face. They forced the Danites into the hill country. They didn’t even allow them to go down into the valley. The Amorites were determined. They were determined to stay in Haretz and Aelon and Shabim. When the house of Joseph got the upper hands, the Amorites were made to serve as forced labor. The territory of the Amorites extended from the scorpion’s ascent. That is from Sila upward.

That’s a lot of names. That’s a lot of places. I don’t expect any of us to understand all of those things. But what you can understand is that tribe after tribe is failing their task to drive out the inhabitants of the promised land. Even Joseph’s success, we’ll get this in a second. Even Joseph’s success is incomplete. So far, every tribe mentioned is failing to claim their full inheritance in the promised land.

Let me help illustrate it for you. This is a map of what was going on. The red territory, best as we can understand, that’s where the tribes of Israel had succeeded in taking the land. The green was God’s promise to them where they had failed to take the land. Man, there’s just as much green, if not more, than red. The tribes of Israel are not claiming their full inheritance. They are not taking the full land.

Let me say it this way. Incomplete obedience, man, for me that’s disobedience. The people of Israel were incompletely obeying God. That’s disobedience, man. That sounds pretty harsh, but let me just put it this way. Anybody in the room ever managed other employees before? You ever give that employee a list of five tasks and they do three? Do you celebrate the fact that they did 60% of their job? No. You have a followup. You say, “Do this other 40% or man, we can have some more hard conversations.”

Parents, you ever give your your kids a list of things they’re supposed to do and they come back, or rather you find them not doing the thing you told them to do. Do you celebrate the fact that they did half? Or do you also say, “Hey, bud, you you missed cleaning the dining room. I told you to clean your room and the dining room.” You like we get this in real life, but we don’t want to apply this to the Lord because we like to sing Amazing Grace and think that if we claim faith in Jesus, if we get baptized, if we say a prayer that we could do whatever in the world we want to. But God is holy and God gives us He gives us instructions and God expects us to obey Him.

And in fact, we look at the life of Jesus and we say, “Man, Old Testament God, that guy’s pretty harsh. Jesus comes on the scene. Me and Jesus are buds.” Jesus actually made it harder for us to obey God. In the sermon on the mount, Jesus said, “You’ve heard it said, you shall not commit adultery.” We can all get that, right? You shouldn’t you shouldn’t commit adultery. But Jesus goes, “I say to you, anybody who looks at someone else with lust has already committed adultery in their hearts.” Wow. You have heard it said, “You shall not murder.” That’s probably good for most of us. We’ve never murdered anybody, right? Jesus goes, “But I say to you, anybody who calls somebody a fool in anger has already murdered them in their heart.”

It’s hard to obey God. Jesus increased the standard. He raised the bar. And what we see happening here is that the people of Israel were incompletely obeying God. And in God’s eyes, that’s disobedience. And we know that’s what’s going on because of chapter 2. Chapter 2, verse 1-5. The angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to a place called Bokeum and said, “I brought you out of Egypt. I led you into the land I had promised your ancestors, and I also said that I’ll never break my covenant with you.” Oh. You are not to make a covenant with the inhabitants of this land, man. You’re to tear down their altars. But you haven’t obeyed Me. What have you done? Therefore, I now say, I will not drive out these people before you. They will be thorns in your sides. Their gods will be a trap for you. When the angel of the Lord had spoken these words to all the Israelites, the people wept loudly. So they named that place Bochim. Your Bible might have a little subheading because Bochim means weeping, and they offered sacrifices there to the Lord.

Make no mistake, God expects obedience. He’s got grace for us, but He expects obedience. And in this moment, God’s discipline is also a sign of His love and His mercy. Every good parent disciplines their kids to prevent future wreckage and carnage. God’s the ultimate dad. So, He disciplines Israel for their incomplete obedience, which He explains as a failure to protect the special covenant that He has made with Israel.

This was the problem. We look at chapter 1 and we see some failure, but a lot of success. God looks at chapter 1 and He sees broken covenants. Look at verses 22-26 of chapter 1. The house of Joseph also attacked Bethel, and the Lord was with them. We’ve seen that before. God’s presence, God’s promises. The house of Joseph, they attacked Bethel. They sent spies to Bethel. The town was formerly named Luz. The spies saw a man coming out of the town and they said to him, “Please show us how to get into town and we will show you kindness.” When he showed them the way into town, they put the town to the sword, but released the man and his entire family. Then the man went to the land of the Hittites, built a town, and named it Luz. That is its name still today.

Man, this passage brings up all sorts of questions with other parts of the Bible. But what we see in this moment is the people of Israel making a covenant with a particular person in the land. And I don’t know if you caught it in the rest of chapter 1, the times where the people of Israel would fail to drive all the Canaanites out. They would make them serve as forced labor. They would enter these covenants with the people. But God said that He expects covenant faithfulness to Him and to Him alone.

See, God’s persistent love has been sealed by blood. And He says, “I have made you my people. I will be your God. You will follow me. You will obey me.” God’s persistent love sealed by the blood of a sacrifice points to a future Savior who would also save God’s people by His blood under a special covenant. And we get Him right here. Verse 1, chapter 2, the angel of the Lord. Look at those pronouns He speaks with. I brought. I led. I promised. I said. In the Old Testament when the angel of the Lord speaks, people, man, they fall down, they worship, they’re terrified. Right here, the people, they fall down, they worship, they weep.

The angel of the Lord, at least the way I read the Old Testament, this is Jesus before we come to see Him born as a baby in the town of Bethlehem. This is Jesus taking the sin of people personally and seriously. This is Jesus displaying that God has got to step in.

See, the whole book of Judges is this, that broken saviors will rise up to battle the enemies of God’s people. But these broken saviors, as great as they are, can never defeat the greatest enemy of God’s people, which is the sin living inside of their own hearts. You see, these leaders, Deborah, Barak, Ehud, Samson, Gideon, they will be incredible. We’ll see major stories of military conquests, but the ultimate issue is not people in the land. It is sin in their hearts.

In fact, this is the major lesson I want you to take away from this today. It’s this. As I start to wrap up, it’s this. We are all desperate for a Savior. We’re all desperate for a Savior, including you and me, man. Don’t you feel it? Don’t you feel the anger and the greed and the pride welling up inside of you? And you’re like, “Who can deliver me from this wretched man that I am? I want to do the good things. I want to do right. But when I want to do right, I do the bad stuff, and I want to avoid the bad stuff. But when I try to avoid it, I end up doing it instead.” Man, we need a Savior from the sin that lives inside of us. We need a Savior even from our lukewarm love for God. These moments where we say, “God, I do love you, but I don’t love you enough. God, save me from this.” Man, we need a savior from Satan and darkness which crouches on us and wants to oppress and destroy our lives. And some of us need a savior from our very own life choices that we are making. And we are like a car about to careen off of a cliff. And we need saviors. But here’s the thing, false saviors can’t deliver us in the same way that Gideon and Barak and Deborah could never save God’s people.

Here’s the deal. You will try to be saved by your family. Mom and dad might be able to buy you out of a problem, but your family can’t save you from your sin. You might try to save yourself through finances, if I make more money, if I accomplish more at work. But guess what? The problems will only get bigger because you’re making more expensive mistakes. You can’t be saved by your trophies and your accomplishments either where you think if I just do this, if I get this promotion, this accomplishment, if I do this in sports, if I make it to this place in life, but guess what? This place and that place and this thing will never actually satisfy you because you have not been made for baseball or your job or for this world. You’ve been made to love God and be loved by Him. In steps Jesus.

See, here’s the deal. God has made this world. He knows what’s best. And He made you for a relationship of love and joy and peace, where every moment of your life would just be blanketed by harmony and fullness and satisfaction. Never any lack, never any fighting, never any doubts in yourself if God even exists. And one day, God will bring us to a place where that will be your everyday existence, where you will see God face to face for the rest of time, the rest of eternity, and you will just kneel before Him. And you will just worship Him for who He is. And you won’t care what people think about you. And you won’t be worried about next month’s bills. You won’t be worried about what you’re not getting in this life anymore. You’re going there.

But in the meantime, you and I both know life doesn’t feel like it was supposed to. And it sure doesn’t feel like that. Here, life feels gray. You know, you make the mistakes. You know you sin. You try to grab your life to make sense of it. And every time you grab it, the whole thing just starts shaking. Or maybe when you grab your life, man, things go really well. But here’s the deal. Even you can’t save you from death. Like it’s coming for all of us. We need a savior. And Jesus is that savior.

He came and lived the perfect life you and I are supposed to live. A life of always obeying and loving and cherishing God. And Jesus after living that perfect life, after never once falling to temptation, offered Himself up as the perfect sacrifice, fully paying the debt of sin that you and I all owe. Fully absorbing the wrath and the discipline of God for our sin that you and I both know we are guilty of and that we feel shame for. Jesus fully satisfied that on the cross. And after dying for our sin, Jesus really was buried in a grave. And after three days, guess what my man did? That man rose from the grave and He came out. He’s not dead. You cannot go to Israel and find the body of Jesus in the grave anywhere. You might be able to find the tomb where we think He was buried, but you will not find Jesus there. Why? Because He is risen. And He is risen indeed.

And when He rose on Easter Sunday, He defeated the greatest enemy you will ever face. It is not the Canaanites and it is not your cash flow. The greatest enemy you will ever face is the sin inside of your own soul. Jesus has already dealt with that man. So for the believer in the room, the one who has placed your faith in Jesus Christ, my offer to you this morning is walk in the presence and the promises of God. Walk in the presence and the promises of God. God is looking at Israel and He says, “I’m going to go with you. I’m going to deliver this land into your hands. I will guarantee your success.” God’s got promises for You, too. To never forsake you, to always keep you, to hold you. Walk in those things. For the person in the room, you have not yet given your life to Jesus as your rescuer, as your master. Please choose God’s love today. You know, you know that you can’t save yourself. Stop trying. Embrace God’s salvation over you. Man, if that’s a faith step you’ve never made before, I’ll be upfront. I would love to pray with you. Love to help you just find your way to Him through Jesus who said that He is the way, the truth, and the life. For now, let’s bow our heads and pray.

God, I’ve gone long. I hope I’ve said what You wanted me to say. I trust, Lord. I trust that You hear all the aching and the crying and the yearning of our hearts. I trust that You love us. I trust that You have good things planned for us. Lord, I want to pray for anybody in the room who does not yet know You as Lord and Savior. And I’m begging that You would save them. I’m begging You would rescue them from themselves. That You would become the master of their lives. That they would give themselves to You instead. Holy Spirit, open their hearts up right now. Help them to say, “God, I admit that I’m a sinner and my life is going off the tracks. I believe that You sent Your son, Jesus, to die for me, and I confess that I need Him.” That they would yield to You, God.

For anybody in the room who has made that step, but God, they don’t live in the promises and the peace that You offer, I pray that they would yield to You, too. Lord, help us to be a people that would give all of ourselves to You. God, thank You for giving all of Yourself for us. We love You. Amen.