We see several interesting things happening in our text today. First, like yesterday, and like tomorrow again, we see the dangers of being influenced by the world.  We have to have our identity and being deeply and firmly rooted in Jesus, first and foremost. He is where our life is found. But see another warning in the text. The people drifted away after Joshua because they put too much of their identity in him, not in God. Leaders, even Godly ones, will fail. Only Jesus is perfect. Because of that, we need to share our story of faith, especially with our children and grandchildren. Tell them about Jesus. They need to know, they need to hear from us. Pass on your story to the next generation, so they know the truth of our faith!

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Good morning. It’s good to be with you, on this, wonderful, Wednesday morning. It’s great to be continuing together in our time in Joshua. Hope you’re doing well. We’re excited.

Today is gonna be this is gonna be our last kinda Wednesday night regular Wednesday night of our semester. Next week, we’ll have our children’s musical. But, great things are happening here at our church. I’m excited about, just all the great stuff God’s doing at Saint Matthew. So, look forward to another good Bible study tonight.

Today, we’re gonna read, Judges two. We’re gonna read two verses one through 10. Judges two one through 10 where, these words are written. Now the angel of the lord went up from Gilgal to Bochum and said, I brought you up from Egypt, and I brought you into the land that I promised to your ancestors. And I said, I will never break my covenant with you.

For your part, do not make a covenant with the inhabitant of this land. Tear down their altars. You have not obeyed my command. See what you have done. So I now say I will not drive them out before you.

They shall become adversaries to you, and their god shall become a snare to you. When the aim of the Lord spoke these words to the Israelites, the people lifted up their voices and wept. They named the place Bochum, and there they sacrificed to the Lord. When Joshua dismissed the people, the Israelites all went to their own inheritances, take possession of the land. People worship the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the elders all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen the great work the the Lord had done for Israel.

But Joshua, son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110 years. So they buried him with the bounds within the bounds of his inheritance in Tamara Heres in the country eel country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gash. Moreover, that whole generation was gathered to their ancestors. When another generation grew up after them who did not know the Israel do not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. Important stuff here for us to ponder, as Christians, particularly as parents and as grandparents and as part of the community.

We see first the the word that, hey. You guys didn’t do what I told you to do. You didn’t drive out inhabitants, and there’s gonna be a temptation. There there gonna be a snare to you. There gonna be a temptation to you.

It’s gonna happen. And I think it’s important for us in our lives to be aware of the temptations that are around us. We should never be blind to temptation. The surest way to fall into a trap with temptation is to believe that you can’t be tempted. That’s that’s the surest way to have it happen.

If you think you’re beyond temptation, if you think temptation can’t possibly get you, if you believe that, temptation is not something that you need to worry about, then that’s the surest sign that you will fall prey to it. We we are all prone to temptation. Every last one of us. Every last one of us that are human, that are sinful are gonna be prone to be led astray in some way. So be aware of that.

That’s what they’re like you’re gonna face is they’re gonna face the temptation and the snares of their neighbors. So that’s, important for us to to be aware that we are not immune to the cultural winds, to what our neighbors are doing, to what is is happening. And, it’s always important for us to find we talked about this in staff yesterday. Important for us to find our identity first and foremost in Christ, Not in anything else. Not any even even good things can become problems if they replace Christ on the throne of our heart.

So they were gonna fall into temptation because of their neighbors. Common common thing common thing we still face today. But I wanna talk about what we read the second part, which is Joshua, his passing, and this new generation. First, let’s talk about Joshua. Joshua is we we mentioned this yesterday, how the Israelites had had such great leadership for so long.

Moses that when Moses died, Joshua. And then we see Joshua dies, and the generation that was with him dies. And this new generation does remember what the Lord had done. And it’s so easy for us to forget what the Lord has done. I I heard somebody say one time, I think that stuck with me, that Christianity is always one generation away from extinction.

If people don’t come to believe in Christ, if people are not converted, then the faith doesn’t grow. So it’s important for us as parents, as grandparents, as uncles, and aunts, and and and mentors to always be teaching the faith to our children. To always and not just teaching the faith in some generic sense. I don’t just mean teaching the doctrines of the church, which is important. A hundred we should our children and grandchildren should know the doctrines of the church without a doubt.

That is so important. But more than that, they need to hear our stories of faith. How the lord saved us, how the lord protected us, how the lord walked with us, they need to know our stories. So it isn’t just enough to intellectually know the things of faith. Do your children know when you accepted the Lord?

Do your do your grandchildren know about when you accepted Jesus and when you followed him? Do do your children know the stories of when God was present in your life and how God interceded in your life and how god has helped you? Do do they know these stories? They need to. They they they need to know these stories.

They they because these stories are ways we can point to where god is. We should tell these stories often to our children, to our grandchildren around the dinner table. One of the things I’ve suggested before when I’ve done camp meetings is as the families gather around the, the tents at night to eat, to take time telling the stories of their faith. And why are they a Christian? How did they become a Christian?

How did they become to believe in Jesus? We have to tell the stories because if we don’t tell them, how will they know? How will the children and grandchildren know if we don’t tell them our stories of faith? What happened here is after Joshua, there was no one left that remembered the powers of the Lord. There was no one left that remember what the Lord had done.

The stories may not have been told. They did not know them. They did not remember them. They do not understand them. And so it’s important for us who are Christians to always share the stories of our faith with our children, with our grandchildren.

And then I wanna talk about what we see here with Joshua’s death and how things begin to fall apart. We’re gonna see the next tomorrow, we’re gonna see how the the nations begin to, fall into sin, fall into idolatry, that Israel begin to fall into idolatry. They begin to walk away from God, and God had to raise up judges to bring them back. And in church. Hey.

I’m a preacher. I mean, I do the whole religion thing for a living. I mean, I love Jesus as as many of you do. I love the church. But I tell them to all the time, don’t follow Jesus because of me, and do not do not ever put your faith in a human leader more than your faith in Jesus.

Because humans will fail you. I’m not planning on it. I’m not looking to do it. But humans will fail. That’s what we do.

We’re imperfect. We I’m I didn’t die for your sins. I’m just a guy I’m just a guy from Bogota. What do I know? When Joshua died, the people had such faith in his leadership, such trust in his leadership, which is good.

They couldn’t imagine what happened after him, and there was never another there was never another leader like Joshua basically till David almost. You had others that would rise up from time to time, but they weren’t like Joshua. Don’t have more faith in your preacher than you do in your savior. Don’t have more faith in your leaders than you do in your savior. Now, yes, we need godly leaders, a %.

We need godly leaders, But it’s not about following them. It’s about following Jesus. And our prayer is that we follow them because they’re following Jesus. But remember, our faith is never in another person. Never in another person.

Our faith is always, always, always founded on the lordship of Jesus Christ. He is the leader that we follow. He is the one that we aspire to be like. He is the one that deserves our faith. Not another human, but always Jesus.

When Joshua died, they were aimless because they didn’t they weren’t they were rooted more in his leadership than in God. So let’s not make that mistake. Let’s keep our eyes firmly planted upon Jesus first and follow him. So tomorrow, we’ll pick up, with the verse 11, and we’ll look at the unfaithfulness, and we’ll see we’ll see, some of these stories that we know so well in the coming days. Hey.

Thanks for being with us. Have a great rest of your day. See you.