Break the Cycle: Trouble Comes Along
Text: Judges 3:7-11
Big Idea: As we repeat the cycles of our lives, they are often defined by the trouble that we encounter. Trouble is unavoidable, and it is related directly to our tendency to wander away from God.
INTRO
• Have you ever found yourself in trouble?
o About two weeks ago, I was driving my wife up and down the coast in Kauai, HI.
o I spent hours exploring the north shore of the island, which are beautiful but only suitable for snorkeling and swimming.
o I was itching to do some boogie boarding, and I started to get more impatient the longer we sat in the car.
o Finally, around 3:00 in the afternoon, I found a great place on the eastern shore with beautiful surf, so I grabbed my body board out of the trunk and sprinted down into the water.
o What I failed to see was the large orange sign about twenty yards away from us warning about riptides.
o Struggling around, not getting anywhere…
o Finally gave up and tried to wave for a lifeguard to come and save me…
o When I did make it out, he came over and said, “Are you ok, bro?”.
o Bro is actually a Hawaiian term for “stupid Caucasian tourist.”
o I collapsed on the beach and I was simply happy to be alive.
• Now, the circumstances may be different for you, but I bet you’ve had the same feeling that I did on that sand – you were just happy that you survived your time of trouble.
REPEAT OFFENDERS
• Last week, Doug did a great job of establishing the cycle of behavior of the Hebrew people that we find in the book of Judges.
• Time and again throughout the book, the people of God find themselves in trouble.
• They were repeat offenders who simply didn’t learn from their lessons.
• Why is that? Why do any of us think that we can avoid trouble in life?
• Centuries later, the Jesus Christ himself promised that we can always expect trouble in life:
John 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
• It’s almost a naivety to assume that we can go through life without experiencing trouble.
• Yet, isn’t that what we do?
• Raise your hand if you have ever been guilty of driving your car for awhile after the “check engine” light came on. Or if you’ve dated someone thinking that they will change. Or if you bought a house between 2006 and 2008, thinking that home values would continue to skyrocket.
• The list can go on and on, but the truth is the same: we make decisions that are flat out dumb, and there are often consequences to deal with later.
• As Doug talked about, the Book of Judges shows us how a group of people make the same mistakes over and over and how they paid the penalty for it.
• Let’s turn over there now, as we begin with the first judge that God raised up to lead His people, Othniel:
7 The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord; they forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs. 8 The anger of the Lord burned against Israel so that he sold them into the hands of Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram Naharaim,[a] to whom the Israelites were subject for eight years. 9 But when they cried out to the Lord, he raised up for them a deliverer, Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, who saved them. 10 The Spirit of the Lord came on him, so that he became Israel’s judge[b] and went to war. The Lord gave Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram into the hands of Othniel, who overpowered him. 11 So the land had peace for forty years, until Othniel son of Kenaz died. - Judges 3:7-11
• Here we have a story that is repeated over and over again in this book, with only the names changing.
• The cycle of the Judges in laid out pretty clearly here:
o The Israelites do evil in the eyes of the Lord, as they wandered away from Him and worshiped other things.
o God is angered, and He allows consequences for their sin to come.
o The Israelites are brought to a point of desperation, and they cry out to God.
o God shows mercy, sends a savior, and the people find peace again.
o The same story is replayed with Gideon, Ehud and Samson.
• In this first example of a savior judge, we have Othniel, who really has no other distinction in the bible than simply being the first judge of Israel.
• However, his story is one that clearly shows us how God’s people got off track in the first place.
• How did their sin start? They consciously chose to walk away from God.
WALKING AWAY
• In my wife’s career working in community mental health, she would consistently find herself counseling people that were shocked that smoking crystal meth got them into trouble, and that their repeated choices wound placing them on her sofa.
o While she was always objective and kind during her sessions with clients, she couldn’t help shaking her head when they were gone because of their complete obliviousness to their state of being.
• Every parent here knows that feeling as well.
o Do you know why we have to have our kids wear helmets for certain activities?
o Because rather than instructing them to not do things that could possibly lead to brain trauma, we instead give up fighting with them and try to protect them during their skull-cracking behavior.
o I once watched a skateboarding video where kids repeatedly fell off of rails with their skateboards and hit their heads on the pavement time after time.
o Rather than finding another hobby, kids wrap themselves in hard plastic and learn to endure pain.
o Parents just smile and pray their kids don’t seriously injure themselves.
• I’m sure doctors feel like this when they deal with grown-ups.
o Doctors are the only people in the world that can make any adult instantly feel like a child.
o “Looks like your cholesterol is the same as the last time we met. Did you change the way you eat and take the medicine I gave you?” “No.” “What are you going to do from now on?” “I’m going to pay attention and do what you say.”
• Rather than stopping our behaviors, we simply try to find a way that we can justify them.
o Maybe we keep on believing that our significant other really will change, or we can overcome our addictions by ourselves, or that bipartisanship still happens in Washington DC.
o The way we think and act sometimes is pitifully naïve.
• And often, the choices we make that bring us trouble are doing something else as well: they are taking us farther and farther away from God too.
• Israel’s trouble started with what? Forgetting God’s place in their lives and serving other things in His place.
• Because they made a choice to walk away from God, trouble came their way.
DEALING WITH TROUBLE
• Unfortunately, I could preach on this every Sunday for the rest of my career, and still people will make poor choices that get them into trouble.
• So, what do we do? Well, we learn from others example and understand a few things.
• The book of Judges teaches us that there are four things we need to understand in order to get out of trouble in life:
o Expect trouble in life.
• Jesus proclaimed in as inevitability.
• I’ve tried to illustrate the same fact through examples here this morning.
• If we walk out of here and think that we can simply avoid trouble, we will be sent reeling when it does come.
• Simply understand today that trouble is ahead, and the better prepared for it we are, the better we will respond when it comes.
o Trouble is not God’s fault.
• Right now Jim Moccabee is teaching a class here every Sunday about the evil that arises in life.
• Let me ask this question to everybody who is in that class: have you found any evidence yet that God is the cause of evil and trouble in our lives?
• Nope, didn’t think so.
• When the Hebrews during the time of the judges found themselves enslaved by foreign nations and persecuted, do you know who they had to blame? Themselves.
• THEY walked away from God. THEY conscious chose to follow other things. THEY caused the trouble in their lives.
• As hard as life gets, as ugly as it can be, please don’t ever – EVER! – think that somehow God chose to be punitive and take His wrath out on you.
• Not once – NOT ONCE – has there been trouble in life that can be traced back to an act of God.
• We broke this world, and we live in this broken world, full of disease, pain and hardship.
• Which leads us to the next thing to do when trouble comes along:
o Learn to respond to trouble.
• That sounds so simple, doesn’t it?
• Yet, often we shut down when trouble comes along.
• We crack open some Ben & Jerry’s, put on our sweatpants, and find a dark, quiet place to be alone.
• But we see in the story of Othniel, and every other judge, that God responds when His people finally do.
• What prompts His mercy in this story?
• They cry out to Him.
• Instead of sitting around feeling sorry for themselves and their plight, they turn back to God and ask for help.
• Why? Because God is actually capable of helping us.
• I believe that we forget this.
• For eight years, Israel lived under the persecution of a foreign king until the remembered who God is and what He could do for them.
• So, how do we respond in times of trouble?
o Learn to trust God in your trouble.
• The apostle Paul found himself troubled from time to time.
• He learned a powerful lesson about God during the trouble he experienced.
• Let’s read it:
9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. – 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
• Who is it you turn to when trouble comes along?
• Have you ever experienced the strength of God? Especially when you felt your weakest?
• When I was 11 years old, I was swimming with my cousins at my grandparent’s swimming pool.
• I was supposed to be watching my brother Jeff, who was 3 at the time.
• He was playing by the pool, and I let my attention drift away from him.
• I was in the deep end playing Marco Polo with my cousins, when I saw my dad suddenly bolt through the patio door and dive into the pool fully clothed.
• What I hadn’t seen up to that point was my little red-haired brother, who had fallen in when I wasn’t looking and was struggling to not drown.
• The next thing I saw was his little body wrapped up in my father’s arms, as dad held him close and carried him out of the pool.
• Jeff sputtered and coughed, and he leaned close to my dad’s chest, feeling safe after a pretty frightening experience.
• Now, I received a pretty good reprimand for my lack of attention, but I learned something that day: nothing ever escapes the watchful eye of a father.
• I do my best to apply that lesson to my relationship with my son today.
• So, if my dad could drop everything to save my brother, what makes you think that God, who is infinitely more watchful and caring then any father ever could be, will not save you in your time of desperate need?
• It is that lack of belief that keeps us in life’s trouble.
WRAP UP
• Are you in trouble today?
• What have you done to change the behavior that lead you in to it?
• How have you turned back to God and cried out to Him in desperation?
• Do you believe that He is there? Are you doing what you can learn the lessons from this and stay closer to Him?
• Answering those questions are vital to breaking the cycle of trouble in our life.
