Your Spiritual Plus One
A group at church asked me to speak to them about how to stay connected to their kids who had walked away from Jesus. As we talked, I felt heartsick for the pain these parents carried. They had done everything they'd been told to do, but their adult children didn't want to come to church and the fights had left scars.
Read Judges 2:7-19
As I look beyond our church, I see a generation walking away from God. The sociologist Ryan Burge calculates that more than 1.8 million people have left the Southern Baptist Convention in the past five years. Lifeway Research found that in 2024, more churches closed than opened. Pew Research says that since 2007, there's been a 16% drop in the number of U.S. adults who call themselves Christians. In Judges 2, the verb stays the same. Joshua's generation "serves the Lord" and Joshua was a "servant" of the Lord. But the next generation "served the Baals" and then "served Baal and the Ashtaroth." The Hebrew word "abad" is the same every time. Everyone serves or worships someone greater than themselves. The Baals were the local storm gods, said to control the weather. In an agricultural community, every hill had a shrine to plead with the gods for rain. It was a practical spirituality. We need a good harvest, so let's try a both-and spirituality. We'll ask the Lord and Baal to help us. But over time, spiritual adultery leads to divorce. Why? The narrator explains that a generation did not know two things: the Lord, or the work he had done (v. 10). This isn't about knowing facts or information, but the absence of a personal encounter with God and his activity. Even though they knew about God, they didn't know God. It's like how I heard my grandfather share a few stories about his service in World War II. I had a vague understanding of his experience, but I lacked any firsthand understanding of war. Throughout the rest of Judges, the cycle is the same: the people cry out, and God responds. But here we see the bigger picture: before anyone seeks God, we see that he is moved by compassion. He disrupts their peace and prosperity to lead them back to himself. He raises up leaders for them who both save them from their enemies and return them to the worship of God. God keeps taking initiative over and over again to bring his people back to himself. It's a pattern that will find fulfillment in Jesus becoming human, walking among us, and going to the cross. In every generation, God raises up judges and prophets, parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors. In the covenant instructions, he tells us to know him and teach others to know him (Deuteronomy 6:1-9). Because God gives himself to us, we are called to tell others about God. Ultimately, Judges shows us the cost of stubbornly going our own way, serving the god of prosperity. It's an invitation for us to humbly listen to the commands of the Lord and faithfully serve him. What story will we tell those who come after us?
Why do you think the Bible uses the same word for the worship of God and of Baal?
What does it tell you about God that he shows compassion before his people cry out for help?
Who or what are you worshiping in addition to God?
Ask God, "Who do you want me to pursue?" Then, take a risk and tell your friend the story of how you came to know God.