SW // You Can't Save Yourself - Judges 7:1-25

“The devil, if anything, prefers Pharisees—men and women who try to save themselves. They are more unhappy than either mature Christians or irreligious people, and they do a lot more spiritual damage.”

— Tim Keller, The Reason For God

“The divine will is perfectly clear in his mind (v. 16). Gideon’s problem is that with his limited experience with God he cannot believe that God always fulfills his word. The request for signs is not a sign of faith but of unbelief.”

— Daniel Block

1. God wants you to see who saves you

2. You are a soldier, not a civilian.

We are in a war, this is not peace time.

2 Timothy 2:3-4

1 Corinthians 16:13

3. Jesus, the Bread of Life, rolled into the enemy’s camp and smashed it, for us!

Exodus 14:13-14

2 Corinthians 10:7

Philippians 3:3

Ephesians 2:8-9

SW // Deal With Failure - Joshua 1:21-2:5

Judges 1:21-2:5 -

1. Deuteronomy 7:1-11, 17-19

2. "It is not our lack of strength that prevents us from enjoying God’s blessings, or from worshiping God wholeheartedly; it is our lack of faith in his strength. When we rely on ourselves, and base our walk with God on our own calculations instead of simply obeying, we find ourselves making decisions like the Judaites. Othniel attacked a city in God’s strength; the tribe of Judah concluded they could not do likewise in their own. It is halfway discipleship, and Judges will show us that it leads to no discipleship at all. The warning to us is clear!”

— Tim Keller, Judges For You

3. “Ah! Jesus is bruised for my sins, and wounded for my transgressions, and the chastisement of my peace is upon him. He is thus made sin for me. Here I give up my sins to him that is able to bear them. He requires me to open my hands, release my grip and let him deal with my sin. And that I heartily consent to.”

— John Owen, Communion With God


4. “This is every day’s work; I know not how any peace can be maintained with God without it.” 

5. “What? Shall we daily come to him with our filth, our guilt, our sins?” 


6. “What? Shall we daily come to him with our filth, our guilt, our sins?

There is not any thing that Jesus Christ is more delighted with than that his saints should always have communion with him in this business of giving and receiving.”

— John Owen, Communion With God

SW // Half-Obedience - Judges 1:1-20

Sermon Quotes:

1. Be strong and courageous, for you will distribute the land I swore to their ancestors to give them as an inheritance. Above all, be strong and very courageous to observe carefully the whole instruction my servant Moses commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right or the left, so that you will have success wherever you go….Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

Joshua 1:6-9

2. “God, of course, knows the end from the beginning. He alone has the right and the knowledge to see a person who will be condemned on Judgement Day when His son returns, and to bring a judgment down on those people “early.” Thus God, the judge of all, can determine to begin to mete out justice on them now, rather than waiting for the Last Day. Therefore, the future judgment “intrudes” on the present. This is not totally unusual, because the blessings of the gospel are also intrusions of future grace into the present. 

Therefore, this is not a mandate for believers in general to move coercively against unbelievers, nor any warrant for a “holy war” by one faith against another. The way we know the Lord’s will is to read the Ten Commandments and the other directives of the Bible to us— not to try to imitate everything described in all histories of the Bible.”

— Tim Keller, Judges For You

3. But the descendants of Joseph said, “The hill country is not enough for us, and all the Canaanites who inhabit the valley area have iron chariots, both at Beth-shean with its surrounding villages and in the Jezreel Valley.”

So Joshua replied to Joseph’s family (that is, Ephraim and Manasseh), “You have many people and great strength. You will not have just one allotment, because the hill country will be yours also. It is a forest; clear it and its outlying areas will be yours. You can also drive out the Canaanites, even though they have iron chariots and are strong.”

Joshua 17:16-18

4. "True discipleship is radical and risk-taking, because true disciples rely on God to keep his promises to bless them, and not on their own instincts, plans, or insurance policies."

— Tim Keller, Judges For You