Ep.12: The Judges
Good morning. Everyone. Welcome 2 episode 12 of the plan, when I started planning the series, I decided that telling the whole story. I wanted to try and sync up with Easter so that we hit the story on that story would take up with the Christian calendar on Easter. What that means is that we are nowhere near Christmas in our sermons, this Advent. And so, if you're joining us for the first time of the first time in this series, I change the background to read that made it more Christmassy, but and the Decker, we did it, you know, we went all out with the decorations and I made sure to wear a Christmas sweater. So, I will make some connections, but we're in a very different part of the Bible. Right now. We're going to be in the Book of Judges and read the Book of Judges, because we've been following the story of the Bible book by book as we go through from the very beginning. And we've been looking at the one story that unites everything in the Bible. And I think this is especially helpful for us in the Book of Judges, because the Book of Judges Is one of those books that is most susceptible to the Sunday School approach, where we take a story out of context. And we tell the story of Gideon or we tell the story of Samson and we say, yeah, you should be like getting her. You should be like Samsung you should be like you taken completely out of context and we don't know the significance of the story. As I remember. I taught their youth group, the plan, the very first time we went through it and then we did a study of judges and I remember, it was one of the kids went through. I get it. I understand. And that was, that was awesome to see that moment. So hopefully, this will help us to understand what's going on in this book. The story that unites the whole Bible and young and explains. The Book of Judges. Is this, the Bible is the story of God's plan, to establish a Place full of people who live out their purpose in his presence all throughout the Bible. This is what God is doing. He made the world. Do you put people in it? He gave him the job of ruling on his behalf, and then he came down to live with them and then we famously mess that up. And so God responded by restoring the plan to us through one group of people you chose the Israelites and restore the plan through them. And that's the stage of the story. Setting up the plan, through Israel for the sake of all the other nations. And as we've been following the story. What we've seen is God has put on each of these pieces in place. So he started out by saving the people out of slavery in Egypt. So he has a people. He brought them to sign, I where you at them. Build the Tabernacle in his presence, moved into the Tabernacle so that he now lives with his people, he gave him the law while they were at Mount Sinai, to show them how to live out his purposes last weekend. In the Book of Joshua. We saw how he brought them into the promised land, and help him to conquer that land. So, they could actually have a place where they set up God's God's plan. And so, the promised land is now that place and now we're moving into the Book of Judges which follows her right on the Book of Joshua. In fact, our coordinate passage is the very end of Joshua because it helps us Understand where we're headed is moving to the next book. I read this, I want you to watch for these four points guy. Who is God's people. Where is their home? How can I meet with God? And what did God tell them to do? All right. So there's going to be a smattering of verses from Joshua 24. The Joshua assembled, all the tribes of Israel at shechem. He summon the elders leaders, judges, and officials of Israel, and they presented themselves before God. Joshua said to all the people, this is what the Lord, the god of Israel says... And then he tells the story of everything God did that. Like basically what I just told you, right? Which is interesting that this happened so many times as a leader of Israel will just stop and retell the story. The story repeated to you so many times because the story is really important story, and then we pick it up back here in verse 12. He says this when they came in the Book of Joshua, I sent the Hornet ahead of you which drove the cainites out before. You also the two Amorite Kings, you did not do it with your own sword and bow, so I gave you land on. What you did not Toil and cities. You did not build and you live in them and eat them. Eat from Vineyards and Olive Groves that you did not plant. Now, fear the lord and serve him with all faithfulness, throw away the gods, your ancestors, worshipped Beyond Euphrates river. And in Egypt and serve the Lord. After these things, Joshua, son of nun, the servant of the Lord died at the age of 110 and they buried him in the land of his inheritance at. Tim not Sarah in the Hill Country of Ephraim. North of mountain. Ash. All right. So who are the people? Israel. So notice benepass. You can talk about Moses and Israel. And then Joshua in Israel, but there is no one that gets appointed to replace Joshua. So actually what happens if there's no central leader for Israel. So if we want to be a little bit more precise we're talking about the tribes of Israel. Now, it's like if the United States life if the federal government just disappear and you will you have left in the United States is state governments there, a collection of tribal tribal, group of tribes. So that's who we're dealing with now. There's no Central person to lead them. One of the famous Montrose of this book is in those days, Israel had no clue. They had no central leader.
Where is there home? We've been calling it The Promised Land but they're in the land now, so I didn't we can just call it to the land of Israel. The land has a name on it. People updated their maps at this point and wrote is real on that part of the map. It's no longer just some claim that they're making about what God will some day. Do they are in the land? Where can I meet with God? We can meet him in the Tabernacle? And actually, this is a very important thing to understand about the Israelites being in the land, cuz it'll change later. All Israelites live within a journey distance of the Tabernacle where they can Journey their relatively easily. There's rice all live in this one. Contiguous of the area of land until they can all travel to the Tabernacle whenever they need to. And so they all have access to the presence of God. Now, what did God tell them to do in this passage?
You told him to serve God Alone. This is where one of the millions of people who have something at the front of our house that says, as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. That's from this speech at some Joshua 24. He's telling them, they serve the Lord. I don't, you do what you want. But we're going to serve the Lord and they all say they're supposed to serve God. Now that they have the land, they got to, I got to live out the commands. Which their 613 of them. So, one of the things with you read the story, if you don't really find out until you get into the story sometimes, which of those 613 commands are really going to be important, but it'll usually clue you in. And the Book of Judges closest in very quickly because here's a verse 1 of the Book of Judges. After the death of Joshua, the Israelites, ask the Lord who of us is to go up first to fight against the Canaanites. As you read Joshua, Joshua is a very triumphal book and it talks about all the victories that Joshua one over the Canaanite and you could be forgiven for thinking at the end of the Book of Joshua that all the Canaanites have been driven out, is it talks about his house total Victory and how much he went. And then you get to the Book of Judges and you find out actually, Joshua didn't finish the job, but he kept winning his whole lifetime. But when he died, there were still More canonized drive out. Remember, last week. I told you that the command to drive out the Canaanite was going to beat was going to drive the plot for multiple books. Joshua Judges Ruth 1st 2nd Samuel at least really talking about this command for a while. So what we find out is there is more work to do to a very important command that they had. At this point, was to drive out the Canaanites. Part of serving the lord. I'm going to see why it is so important to serving the lord. Because how they do on this command will greatly affect how they do with all the rest of them. So, as we go to the Book of Judges, this is what we're watching for. How are they going to do a serving God and specifically, how are they going to do with driving out the Canaanites? And, as you start reading, chapter one, they do pretty well this tribal say to that tribe. Hey, let's go up and fight those kinda nights and I'll go in there, fighting the win. And then, this tribe will go up and fight those Canaanites into whole bunch of names that you don't recognize and geography that you don't know. But it all seems to be going very well until verse 37. In verse 37. It says this, but the tribe of Manasseh did not drive out, the people of best Shawn or to an accord or Aurelia more megiddo, and their surrounding settlements for the Canaanites were determined to live in that land. When Israel became strong. They press the Canaanites into forced labor, but never drove them out completely. Nor to the tribe of Ephraim drive out the Canaanites living in casar north of the tribe of Asher. Drive out those living in a taco or sedan or a club or a skew or helluva or a fake or real. Neither did the tribe of naphtali drive out. Those living in bed should measure Beth enough and on and on you get the picture. So you're going to send these or these. These wars went on for Generations. A couple of this was a long campaign, right? And it got tiring and some of those Canaanites were just uncooperative. They just would not leave. And so they got to a point when I said, you know, we got most of the land there's only a few of them left to why don't we just make a treaty or I know instead of driving them out. Why don't we just make slaves of them once were more powerful than them? We don't need to go through all the work of actually driving them out. We'll just make them our slaves. So they compromised and they they don't finish they decide not to finish the job that God gives it back to. Actually what they're doing is they're using the victories. God is winning for a totally different purpose to get slaves. So instead of driving out the Canaanites be Israelites, enslaved them. It's two, red flags. Their number one red flag, is they're not fulfilling the command. God gave them this very important command that he gave them number two. Who is they? Are they are disobeying God in a way that bears, a strong resemblance to pharaoh. Write, this is not a good pattern for them to be following. So so this is a bad sign, right? And what it means is that God isn't got his win, the battles for them and what they do with the cainites is how they clean up after work. You're supposed to be driving them out. But instead they're making slaves of them. So they're using the victories. God is willing to disobey God and to profit themselves. Right there. They are misusing the victories that God is winning. So God is not particularly happy with this policy that they've adopted. And so an angel of the Lord, come to the Israelites and in chapter 2. Verse when it says, the angel of the Lord, went up from gilgal to bochum and said, I brought you up out of Egypt and led you to the land. I swore, to give your ancestors. I said, I will never break my Covenant with you and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land. But you shall break down their altars. Yeah, you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? And I've also said, I will not drive them out before you, they will become traps for you and their gods will become snares for you. So, God says hate, you were supposed to drive them out. That's why I'm winning battles for you. So you can drive them out. So this land can be completely dedicated to me and instead you are not following through on that and you're actually turning them into slaves. So you keeping them around in your making money and profiting off of what I'm doing and and building up a stronger rebellious culture. And so how does God didn't respond when they're using his victories to to build up of this rebellious culture. He's not going to win battles for them anymore. When is real abandoned God's plan to stop fighting their battles for them? He says all right, fine, the cainites. They're there. Their they're saying, I'm not going to keep winning battles over them. So you can keep them around and turn them into slaves. That's not what this is for. So I'm not going to keep winning battles for you. Can I stay over here are staying cuz I'm not going to help write. This is not God like throwing a tantrum or taking his ball and going home. This is God. Refusing to enable Rebellion. He's not going to help them disobey him. So now if they're going down that path, they're going to they're going to deal with the Canaanites himself and this Arrangement sets us off into the rest of the Book of Judges, which is a series of Cycles, the stories that follow a repeated pattern. There are 12 judges that are 12 judge cycles that we go to install because of this situation, that's happened. You'll notice on your bulletin. There's a lot of back-and-forth between God and his people. So there's bulletin there's a bulletin points on the left side or what the people doing on the right side for a God does cuz there's some back and forth. But the rest of what we're going to talk about is the cycles that are set in motion because the Israelites refuse to follow through and God's command and God refuse to help them disobey him. Now, we're not going to have time to go into the specific cycle to have them. But thankfully, you can actually get pretty much the entire plot of Judges from just reading Judges chapter 2 because it summarizes, everything is going to happen. So where to look at that summer and see what happens in a situation, like this word that people have disobeyed God's plan and refused to follow through and God's, not going to help them Rebelle anymore. I was going to find out why it was so important for them to drive out this. Here's what happened. After that, whole generation have been gathered to their ancestors, another generation, grew up who knew neither the Lord, nor what he done for Israel. Led the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and serve the Bales. They forsook the Lord, the god of their ancestors who had brought them out of Egypt, they followed and worship, various gods of the peoples around them. They arouse Lord's anger because they first took him and served the bail and the astronauts. They self. Remember what we talked about last week.
The whole point of Israel being in the land. As if he were supposed to go to look at Israel and see, God is supposed to look at this place and its people, and the way their living and be able to understand who God is an awesome. God told him, to drive out to the Canaanites so that it can I influence wouldn't be in that land because what happens with the Canaanite influences exactly. What we've seen here is that the people of Israel they start looking around with her name is doing sweetie, that that looks like fun. That looks that actually looks more satisfying. Most likely the Temptation was the fact that cainite religion was very magical, meaning that you could do the certain things and get exactly what you want from the. If you do this thing, your crops will do. Well. If you do this thing, you will have a child who has a way of bartering with the God so you can have some kind of control and get some kind of immediate satisfaction toaster be a Temptation Of God isn't giving you what you want on your timeline may be bail will if you drive in enough It's ordered his temptation to these other religions that have other ways of interacting with God, where you or their God, where you get some kind of control or some kind of more immediate satisfaction. It's how they get tempted away and they start worshipping other gods. And so they for the Israelites forgot God and serve Canaanite Gods instead, which is a major problem because the fate of humanity, rest on the ability of the Israelites or the success of the Israelites, revealing God's nature to the world. Right. That's the whole point. They are the light to the Nations. We look at Israel. We see God and now in God's Which one, which is Woody worse than if there was no plan at all. Because we're actually being the world's being deceived about who God is. So God has to respond, God has to deal with this situation is for the way you responses in verse 14. It says in his anger against Israel, the Lord gave them into the hands of Raiders who funded them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, who they were no longer able to resist whenever Israel out to fight the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them. Just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress.
To disrobe and in God himself. He stopped protecting them from their neighbors. Now, again, we might read this and kind of see where God is just taking his ball and going home and refusing to play nice or or throw. We might view this as something negative. But it, it's actually essential to the project, the God is doing with the Israelites because in that culture, if you if you look in the nation and that nation is flourishing is doing well as winning battles, then you can make two assumptions. Wonder God is powerful and to their God is happy with them. If a culture is successful than their God is powerful and their God is happy with them. And so if Israel is independence and strong and and doing well for themselves and their daughters powerful, which is true, but the God is also happy with them, which is not true. Remember we talked about this when it came to the priests in the Tabernacle. The God has to demonstrate when he endorses what they're doing and when he doesn't and so to show the world into to clearly communicate that these people are not representing god. Well, he does not endorse their behavior in and what they're doing. Yes to oppose them.
It so not only is God not fighting their battles for them. He's actually now fighting against them. Because God needs to demonstrate one way or the other who he is. 2 heater demonstrates that by supporting them as they obey him, or by punishing them as they disobey him. So that the world will still know. God is not happy with what they're doing.
Now, this is the point in the story, where I've realized that I've been getting the cycles of it wrong because normally the way we tell the story is Israel, disobeys. God sends people to conquer them, Israel repents. God sent to judge to deliver them. But as you read the story that end in Chapter 2, that's not the way it's described and it's actually not what happens when we look at the cycles of the individual stories. To here's what it actually says in Chapter 2, then the Lord raise up judges who saved them out of the hands of these Raiders yet. They would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other guys and worship them. They quickly turned away from the ways of their ancestors who have been obedient to the Lord commands for the Lord relented because of, they're groaning under those who oppressed and Afflicted them. Where does it mention Israel repenting in that Passage? It doesn't in the twelve cycles of Judges. How many times does the Book of Judges say that the Israelites repented? You think?
Yeah, it says they called out. It says they cried out to God because of their suffering but it doesn't say that they said oh hey God. We're sorry. We're wrong. We're coming back to you were going to do things right from now on we promise, right? There's no there's no come to Jesus apology going to change my ways kind of moment and that's so that's not what God is responding to. It says here, the Lord relented because of they're groaning under those who oppress and it's responding to is the suffering of his people. When they're suffering reached a certain point, God sent a judge to deliver them. That's what's actually happening here when they're suffering became too great. God inspired judges to deliver than I do. That's important for two reasons, The first reason is because it helps us get a picture of who God is. Your God is not a Stern. Cold God standing up there waiting for them to say the right words before he's willing to save them that you haven't seen in your life. Like, with James, we're teaching him to be polite and so he can't get down from the dinner table until he says, may I be excused, please, write. He needs to say the words because he's learning those words that I took Russell potty training. So they were times, he doesn't even say those words. He should just go But that's not what God is doing here. God is not waiting for them to 2. The I's and cross the eyes out of compassion and love for his people in their suffering and a desire not to lose them because he's keeping the door. Open for the Covenant is not going to let them be destroyed and he cares about the fact that their suffering is. So he sends judges to deliver them. The other reason why I think that's important for us to understand as we were the judges is because it helps us remember that. The judges are not religious leaders. Well, one of them is Deborah because she's also a, prophetess, is a religious leader, but the judges are not leading the people back there. They're not relating Revival their Leading Armies. God sends the judges to deliver them from their opponents, but they're not religious leaders and and we need to remember that. Because the judges actually can be pretty awful. And as you read through the stories, what you find this as you go through the twelve Cycles, the judges get worse. An important and unfortunately, it's often the ones, we hold them and say, hey you should be like Gideon, don't be like Gideon. First of all, the hopefully this thing. If you put that in the fleece is a way for getting to try and avoid doing what. He knows. God has already told him to do, but if you look at the career Arc forget in he starts by destroying an idol, which is awesome, and he finishes by building a new Idol. Haley's Israel, worshipping Idols again. Is number 5 out of 12. Number 8 is Jeff the Jeff as a mountain Thug that the Israelites call to deliver them cuz they need someone who can fight, and he, he thinks he is. So ignorant of God that he, he thinks you have to bribe. God to give him a victory. So he says, they got if I win, then I will sacrifice. Whatever comes out of my house first to you. He wins and he comes home in the first thing come out of house is his daughter and so, he sacrifices his daughter and unfortunately, sometimes we think we wanted him to do that. He was supposed to keep that promise. But do you remember last week that we talked. God was talking to them about? Don't be like the Canaanites. And what was the worst thing that the Canaanites did? What was the most extreme example got listed of what? The king, I did that. They should never do with sacrifice children. But jephthah is so completely ignorant. The leader of the Israelites are so completely ignorant of who got is that he thinks God wants him to sacrifice his daughter. And then these number 8, number 12, Samson. Dancing is a mess. He isn't he is such a mess that when an angel comes to his mom. And, and before she gets pregnant and prophesize of these coming, the angel lower your expectations. He actually says, Samson's going to start to deliver. The filter delivery Israelites were the Philistines who started the light from a fresh. He's going to kill a bunch of Philistines, but it's mainly because they keep getting in his way of marrying Philistine women, if he's any breaks, every vow that he's supposed to make and he's a complete failure. Don't feel like Samson. What you're supposed to be realize when you get to this point in the story. Is it even? The judges are getting worse? Each time you go through the cycle, is real gets worse. And this is exactly what the summary in chapter to chapter two leads us. To expect says, when the judge died, the people return to Waze even more corrupt than those of their ancestors. Following other gods and serving and worshipping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways. This isn't Cycles. They don't start here and then disobey God. And then get persecuted and then repent and come back to where they started. This is a downward spiral. They get worse. Every time they go through the loop. They're not getting better. They're not returning to where they work. Every time they they do worse than the time before. Once they were delivered, his rights became even more sinful and belly rebellious him before. And they just keep going in a downward spiral. Until you get to the last like three chapters of Judges which are horrible. I'm not even going to get into what happens in the last, three chapters of Josh. I think it's 3. I didn't I didn't I didn't even go to read until I guess. I think it's 3 to the end of Judges is just a horror show of abuse and violence, and perversion, and Corruption and Civil War, and it is just this incredibly horrible dark place that the Israelites end up in. I think we're told on you, when you finish those stories. It's deeply depressing, and it's dark and it's disturbing. I ain't that partly there for us to understand why God was so clear about his command for them to drive the Canaanites out because he knew where that would lead and those little compromises the beginning of the story seemed like not a big deal to the Israelites, but it became a huge deal. We see how it completely set them off the rails and how they they just bought them out in the most horrifying ways you can imagine. That's the trajectory. Did it put them on? It's how you find the spiral going down and down and down until they hit absolute rock-bottom because that's where the past that they chose LED them to.
And that's the Book of Judges.
Merry Christmas.
Not every you can see why were the Christmas sweater? It's actually what I find is may not be a great message for Christmas, but it is a fantastic setup to talk about Advent.
Event is all about waiting for Jesus, and our need for Jesus and the Book of Judges demonstrates more clearly. I think, than any other part of the Old Testament, why the Israelites and needed a messiah?
And as we reflect on how our story's can parallel, the Book of Judges, we also see how desperately we need a messiah and we pull out a few lessons that we can pull from this recognizing that we are in a relationship or invited into a relationship with the same. God, this of the story. The first thing that we learn is that compromising with sin. Always pulls us away from God's plan. We Face the same Temptations. We battle sin in our lives to reach a certain part. What? Part where we point, where we've been fighting for a while. We're getting tired of you making out. This is good enough. I'll make a treaty with this, with this sin, with this part of my old self, and I'll let it live in this little box and we won't bother each other and this will be fine. Do we make these little Treatise? And we, we don't recognize it any compromise with sin leads us away from God's plan. I can give you an example in my life. I there was a time in my life, when I was the thing. I was best. That was cutting people down with words. And I had a temper that caused me to use that quite a bit. And I have worked very hard to tame that and 2 to stop that kind of behavior. And if I'm completely honest, I thought there was a point where I signed a treaty where I said, hey, I'm not saying these things to people anymore. I'm still thinking them, but I'm not saying them to people, and I'm not saying them to other people about them as much. And so, how about this? I won't say these things to people, but I'll save it to my steering wheel. And I'll save it to my shower head and I will dwell on them and those moments in privacy and no one will ever hear them and it'll be fine. Seems like a reasonable treaty, right? And yet what I find. is that when I
we're all going to feel moment of frustration at times, right? That's going to happen. But what I'm talking about is, I then choose to set off a little little secret place in my life, where I can't dwell on those frustrations. And I can I can work them over and get angry and, and come up with arguments and come up with criticisms. And, you know, it to my steering wheel is my shower head and what it does. Is it poison to me? Because all that stuff is still in there. The next time I talk to that person. It poisons that relationship. And that is a treaty that I make that pulls me away from God's plan. Cuz God's plan is that I won't dwell on those things that I won't work myself up into bitterness and anger. And that's a battle that I need to continue to fight. Another what place where we might make treaties, that are maybe a little more obvious, but perhaps also more dangerous and and tempting we want to control control our sexual urges and we say hey I have gotten to the point where I'm not sleeping around.
Yeah, I'm not, I'm not sleeping around. I can control my relationships, but I'll just, I'll just let it out a little bit with my computer. Is that what hurt anybody? I've got that treaty. You know, we have all kinds of Temptations in our lives and we say, well, I'll just, I'll just make this little tree and those treaties always pull us away from God's plan. And if you don't, it doesn't seem like very much at first. But it always leads you away. Cuz God's plan is not for you to have compromises with sin. God's plan is for you to always be winning battles against it to always be moving that direction to be conquered and sit in your life.
And what we see from the story of Israel is that the longer we spend on our own path, the further we drift from God and his character. As we have those treaties and we're okay with those trees and we don't resist those trees. We gradually part farther and farther away from God. And I don't know if you've experienced this but every once in awhile, you might look around and go. How did I get here?
I swore I would never be here or really like judges. I swore I would never be here again. How did this happen? How did I get here? What is wrong with me? That I fell into this again? Because that Pat has been leading us farther and farther away. And it, we see the Israelites forgot what they knew about right and wrong with a new about God's plan for them. Just I didn't even know he wasn't supposed to burn his own child to God. Right. We see that happen to us and maybe today you're realizing. Wow. I'm in that place.
And the question then is, how does God feel about me? When you realize you're in that place, it doesn't feel good. And we can add another layer to that is singing. Well, God must be just furious with me. He must be so fed up with me. And that's why I think it's also important to learn from the story of Israel that even when we were Belle, God still loves and watches over us. God doesn't enable that that Rabbani. So maybe you're experiencing failures or obstacles in your life because God is not going to help you to rebell against him, but that doesn't mean that God is done with you. That doesn't mean that God has turned his back and crossed his arms. God loves you and is watching over you and is keeping that door open for you to return to him at any moment today. That's the god that the Bible teaches us about all the way back in judges. You don't have to wait for Jesus to find the god of a Good Samaritan or the The Prodigal Son. God is always read the story, watching over his people and loving his people.
But the Israelites their Hope was was in these leaders who would come up and would fight battles in the leaders were deeply flawed, but they could at least win some battles because God would Inspire them to win battles. And it'll give him that, that temporary breath of air that temporary relief before they fell back into their spiral. So they had only these fleeting moments of Hope.
And for us, I need the Christmas season. Can often be that fleeting moment of Hope for a lot of people who don't know, Jesus. There's that one month of the year where we actually act like, we love each other or talk. At least like we love each other unless we're in line for fuel sales, but We talked about Hope and we talked about peace and we talk about love, we talk about who we want to be, and we get that brief brief break, but then we fall, right back into it for the rest of the year, right? But the actual good news of Christmas is not in a season where we just talk about love and hope. Enjoy the good news of Christmas is, well, let's let's read it from an early part of the Christmas story. Was an angel who came to Precinct Zacharia and said your son is going to be a prophet who will go before the Messiah will go before God and Zakaria says this prophecy, this poem to his son who will be John the Baptist. And this is, this is the last part of that. He says you, my child will be called a prophet of the most high for you go on before the Lord, to prepare the way for him to give his people, the knowledge of Salvation, through the Forgiveness of their sins. Because of the tender, mercy of Our God, by which the Rising Sun Will Come to Us from Heaven, to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the path of peace. Zakaria is living in a time when those Cycles have continued for centuries. There are, there are there a good moments in the rest of the story of Israel, but they never, they never figure things out because they need a savior and so Zakaria is living at the end of a 400 year. Where they have been waiting for God to come for the Messiah to come. And they have been in this spiral from the stuff that happened in that. Before. Jesus was just as bad as the judges. When he knows the messiah's coming, he sees a hope that will fully and finally save Israel.
Tender mercy of God that will shine on those living in. Darkness is deep deep Darkness there living in the shadow of death and to guide them into the path of Peace. He sees in the coming of Jesus, the full and final. Hope for God's people. That's what we Proclaim it Christmas or how far you have drifted you have. Hope in the coming of Jesus Christ to fully and finally restore, you know, it's still going to be a battle. It's still going to be a struggle. There still be opportunities where you may sign those treaties and may have to break them and may have to get back on the path. But when you give your life to Jesus, Jesus is not one of those judges who's just as far as the rest of us, who can only give us temporary relief. He died for our sins to save us. He brought new life through his resurrection and he gives us the spirit of God to transform us. That is the hope that we Proclaim in Christmas. It is far more than a season. It is far more than a momentary. Hope it isn't Eternal hope that we can be transformed. And to be pulled out of the Spiral of Our Lives.
So, what I want you to hear today is wherever you may be in your own version of the path of the judges. There is hope for you in Jesus Christ today. Day.
As we close, I'm going to invite you to consider taking some next steps. I don't know where you're at. But the next step for you, maybe to give your life to Jesus, to ask for him, to save you in to pull you out of your tail, spin it to change your life. Today is the best day for you to do that. And so I encourage you to come forward during our final song or you can grab a staff member after church. Or if you're watching online. You can get in touch with us or talk to a Christian that you trust. But today is the best day for you to give your life to Jesus. Do you want to get more connected with a church family? We encourage you to take your connection card and check the box. Do you want to go to a connect class? Because the battle that we faced to, to drive out our old selves to drive out? Satan is something that can't be won alone. You need the Holy Spirit. You need Jesus. And you need the congregation. So, if you want to be find out what it means to be part of this congregation just check that box. And we'll be setting up a time for you to hear about who we are what we do and how you can participate. This gives you a group of relationships that will you go through life together. You pray together, you reflect on the service together and you you encourage each other in your own battles. And finally you can join the service team is God invites us to give back to serve in his kingdom and this church provides many opportunities for you to serve as well. You can check that box in your connect card. So I encourage you to consider. What is the next step to God is calling to you too. As we stand and sing our final song.