Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Words of Affirmation Aren't Enough | Historical Books | Judges 10

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

Are words of affirmation enough? Is your faith merely lip service? Do you truly love Jesus? In today's episode, Jensen shares how Judges 10 encourages us walk in the faith we proclaim. We love hearing from you all! If you're listening on Spotify, drop a comment below to let us know where you're listening from. Read the Bible with us in 2025! This year, we’re exploring the Historical Books—Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Judges 10

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. Dr. Gary Chapman made the idea of love languages popular in his book The Five Love Languages. If you've never heard of them, the five love languages are words of affirmation, physical touch, acts of service, gifts, and quality time. He proposes that we all have a language that we predominantly feel loved and show love to others. I say all of this just to set up my hot take on love languages. I think words of affirmation is the worst of all the love languages. Now, I'm married to someone whose primary love language is words of affirmation,

so I say all of this empathetically. But I genuinely think it's flawed. I don't need you to tell me you love me. I need you to show me that you love me. You can say nice things all day, but without the action behind it, they're just words, lip service. I can say nice things if it makes someone feel better, but how do they know I really mean it? Words don't comfort me. People showing up for me, being present in my life, caring for me.

That's love. To take from Jesus in John 1513, greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. True love takes action. It takes work. There's no greater love than this. not that one writes a love sonnet or tells you that you look good today, but that you lay down your life, your wants, your needs, your desires for the good of another. Now, this is both true in our relationships with one another, but also in our relationship with God. There is an epidemic in the church of people willing to call themselves Christians, talking the right talk, saying the right things,

but failing to live lives that uphold the teachings and commands of the very one that they profess to love. And it's not an out there problem, not pointing the finger. It's a right here in my heart problem. You feel it too, don't you? It isn't always insidious. Sometimes we're well-meaning. Like, when I tell my husband that I love him, but then I don't think to ask him about his day or help him with the dishes, or I nitpick the way that he loads the dishwasher. We do it with God too. We sing the right song, say we love God, say sorry when we really mess up, but we forget to study his words. fail to look to him for wisdom when making big decisions decide not to take any tangible changes to our life to weed out the sin that we begin to notice. We sleep in rather than wake up to talk to him in prayer. We fill our time, our days, our lives with things that push him to the sidelines. You see, it's easy to check the box evangelical Christian on a form. It's harder to actually allow your life to be shaped and molded by that declaration of love. And I think today in Judges 10 we'll find a sobering account of what God expects of those who call themselves his people.

After briefly telling us about the two minor judges, Tola and Jair, who came after the time of a Bemelak and oversaw Israel through time of relative peace, we learned that the Israelites have now once again fallen into further disobedience. verses 6 through 8 tell us this. Again, the Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord. They served the bales and the asteris and the gods of Aram, the gods of Saidan, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites, and the gods of the Philistines. And because the Israelites forsook the Lord and no longer served him, he became angry with them. He sold them into the hands of the Philistines and the Ammonites, who that year shattered and crushed them. So the people have chosen yet again to worship and devote themselves to that which is not God.

And so, God sends foreign nations in judgment of their disobedience, and after 18 years of this, we read in verse 9 and 10, Israel was in great distress. Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord, we have sinned against you, forsaking our God and serving the Bales. Now, this seems like progress, right? They're calling out to God. They're looking to him to help. They're remembering that he is their God, that he has rescued them before. They recognize that they have sinned against him. But God responds with this. The Lord replied, when the Egyptians, the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines, the Sidonians, the Amalekites, and the Manites oppressed you, and you cried to me for help, did I not save you from their hands? But you have forsaken me

and served other gods so I will no longer save you. Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble. So rather than responding positively to their words, he tells them to look to the things they have devoted their lives to to save them. Cry out to the gods they've chosen. He's telling them to look to the things that they really truly love for deliverance, not him. What we're seeing here is God's rejection of the people's lip service, of their empty words. You say you love me. You say you've sinned, but look at all the times I rescued you and still look at the gods you have served, bowed down to, shaped your life around rather than me. You don't love me. You love them. Let them save you in your trouble.

Are there areas of your life where the words you say to God in the actions of your life don't match up? It can happen in a million different ways. Maybe you say you love God, but you don't carve out time for him. You say you want to give him your life, but you protect your addiction to alcohol, drug, sex, shopping, social media, gambling. You claim to be filled with his spirit, but the fruits of love, joy, peace, patient. kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control have never seen growth in your life. You say you want to live like Jesus, but instead of being transformed into the likeness of Christ, you're starting to look more like your favorite celebrity, influencer, or politician.

Instead of giving generously to the poor, the needy, the unchurched like he did, you donate your money at the altar of beauty, entertainment, comfort, and self-gratification. if the only time you reach out to God is when you need help, when you want him for something, you don't love him, you love what you think he can give you, things that you aren't getting from the idols you've actually grown to love, to protect, and invest in. Because eventually those lesser loves, the things we devote our time and energy and love to will not be able to deliver us. They will let us down. The high of a purchase, of a drink, of a sexual encounter will fade and leave us looking for the next one. The allure of money and fame

will leave us empty, realizing our goals were shams promising fulfillment and delivering desperation. We have to wake up. To be honest with ourselves, before we spend our lives saying we love Jesus all the while, pouring our hearts out to lesser loves. The Israelites again return to lesser loves to idols. They hit rock body. and they try to turn to God for help, but he can see through it, see through the inaccuracies of their lives, see past their words and into their hearts, and know that they want deliverance, but they aren't paying the price. They are not willing to give up their idols and give God their devotion, their love. At least not at first. Verse 15, but the Israelites said to the Lord,

we have sinned. Do with us whatever you think best, but please rescue us. us now. Then they got rid of the foreign gods among them and served the Lord. And he could bear Israel's misery no longer. So God's rebuke of his people seems to wake them up to the reality of their situation. If they continue to try to flatter God with lip service, they will not live in his blessing. They will not receive the benefits of knowing and loving and serving him. They will be left to find deliverance in the idols that have failed them again and again. Because the God who saves is not interested in their words. He wants their lives.

And so they give it to him. They get rid of the foreign gods. They cast out the idols. They take action and they serve the Lord. And God delivers them. He remains in a covenant with his people. He does not forsake them. Now, we may not have foreign enemies oppressing us.

We may not be a nation asking God for physical deliverance. But we have a deep need for deliverance, a need to be delivered from the broken, of this world, the brokenness in our hearts. Jesus is building a kingdom of restoration, of justice, of mercy, and love. It's the only thing that will last. It's the only thing that will stand the test of time. It's the only place where we will find deliverance from pain, injustice, and evil. And in Revelation 3, when Jesus is rebuking the apathy of the early church in Laudacea, he says, I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either

one or the other. So because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. So both hot and cold water have uses. They have purpose, they can purify, cleanse, cook, they can take action. Lukewarm water? Well, it's still. Lifeless, dull. It spreads diseases and bacteria. It only has a propensity for death. So Jesus is looking at this church, at their deeds, and saying, you are lukewarm. You have no action. You say, you love me, you say you want to follow me, but your actions speak for themselves. You are lukewarm. Your lack of action reveals your heart. Jesus is about to spit you out of his mouth, to reject you. And yet, this warning is followed with this comforting command. Those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest. Repent. Here I am. I, Jesus,

stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person and day with me. Jesus is here. Arms open, offering a love that never ends, offering life that never extinguishes, offering himself to you. His rebuke comes because he loves you. He wants to have a relationship with you. He wants you to see the joy and beauty and mercy that comes from a life fully devoted to his ways to him. He wants to sit and eat with you in his kingdom for all of eternity. He wants you at his table. Will you open the door to your life? Will you allow his love to enter every nook and cranny of your life? Will you allow him to push out the idols to grow love for him in your heart? that produces the fruit of the spirit, that produces action, that produces a life of beauty and restoration, not just for yourself, but for your communities, your friends, your family. Get rid of the idols in your life. Serve the Lord. Open the door to Jesus. Faith without action is dead. Follow his ways. Devote your life to the one you say you love, and watch in wonder at what

he will do with it.