The Weekend - "The Upside to Judgment, Fear, and Failure"

I've read a lot of books and heard a lot of talks about how to be successful in this or that. But it's rare for those books or those talks to really discuss the terrible dangers lurking in success.

Gideon's story spells out the real dangers of success and the upside of failure. 

Sometimes they do talk about the upside of failure. But the point is how failure can get us closer to success.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against success and I'm not pro-failure. But there are real dangers lurking in success. Very real dangers. Gideon's story in Judges 6-8 illustrates the dangers. And it offers direction on how to avoid the dangers for those times when we're killing it in life.

But the reality is that there are times when the danger is so well masked that failure is the greatest thing that could happen to us. Failure has an upside. And so do judgment and fear. We'll explore that this weekend in the sermon.

Of course, our weekend service is more than the sermon. Our worship gathered fuels the vision for our worship scattered. Come, gather, worship this weekend at Five Oaks.

10 Tweets on "Why Judges?" (Judges 2)

Here is last weekend's sermon in 10 Tweets from our "The Promised Land (Joshua & Judges) series:

1/ You'll likely have one of two reactions to reading Judges, one represented by Lois and one by me: depressed or fascinated. 

2/ This is not a book of heroes. The more truly heroic, the less Judges focuses on that judge.

3/ As the people worsen, so do the judges.

4/ The lack of overt condemnation of the judges doesn't equate to endorsement or indifference. The results speak for themselves.

5/ There is a dark side to every hero throughout history. But every human hero creates a longing for the one true hero.

6/ Every deliverance in Judges is purely an act of grace.

7/ There is a battle going on for your soul (and the souls of the next generation) and there are no breaks in the battle. 

8/ And there arose another generation who neither knew the Lord or what he had done for Israel. And the people did evil… (Judges 2:10-11))

9/ The key to victory is to know the story of God--head and heart knowing. 

10/ It's not a question of whether or not a child will be indoctrinated. It's a question of who will do the indoctrinating. 

Indoctrinate Your Kids? Yes!