Worrier to Warrior

Introduction Do you ever compare yourself to people who are out there doing great things for God and think, “God could never use me like that. I’m not courageous. I’m not a natural leader, I don’t have much talent, and public speaking makes me want to throw up.”

That makes you just like Abraham the cowardly liar, Moses the stutterer, David the scrawny shepherd, Esther the orphan, Jonah the fish food, and Peter the impulsive waffler who suffered from foot-in-mouth disease! When God looks for someone to use, he usually chooses the most unlikely person.

Today’s we’re looking at Gideon. Most of us when we hear his name only think of Bibles in hotel rooms. Today, we’re going to see that God used him, even though he had issues. Here are a few of his issues:

He came from a lousy family background. Do you feel crippled by your childhood? Do you have trouble moving on from the patterns you learned in your home of origin? This message is for you.

He had poor self-esteem. Do you have issues with feeling worthy? Do you compare yourself to others and always come up short? This message is for you.

He lived in fear of bullies. Are you a hider? Do you deal with fear or anxiety in regards to a situation or a person that keeps you closed, cocooned, shut down? This message is for you.

He was a chronic worrier. Do you worry if you don’t have something to worry about? This message is for you.

He caved in to peer pressure. Do you live your life so that other people will approve of you? Are you afraid of criticism, disapproval, or abandonment? This message is for you.

If you have any of these issues that Gideon had, and you think that God can’t use you because of that, you’re wrong. We’re going to see how God transforms a worrier into a warrior.

Gideon was a cowardly nobody, yet he was called to lead the nation of Israel against its mighty foe, the Midianites, in one of the most miraculous victories ever.

Like David against Goliath, Gideon met a big enemy at a great disadvantage, and triumphed because of his obedience to God and faith in his word.

How does God turn worriers into warriors?

This is our focus today. God does this in three ways. Meeting, Testing, and Filling.

1. Meeting

We read about God meeting Gideon where he was:

Judges 6:11–12 (NIV)

The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”

The nation of Israel was at its lowest point. They had abandoned God and engaged in idol worship again, so they were spiritually, emotionally, physically, mentally, and economically bankrupt. The Midianites invaded with a force of 135,000 men, forcing the Israelites to flee and hide in caves.

Timeless Principle When trouble came, Israel didn’t have a relationship with God in place, so they couldn’t stand up to the bullies — they just ran and hid. Are you having trouble with bullies? Feeling like hiding instead of fighting against wrong?

Cross Reference You need to be connected with God.

Daniel 11:32 (ESV) The people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.

Textual Explanation

The angel of the Lord meets Gideon, tracking him down as he is surreptitiously threshing grain inside a winepress, which he is doing to keep from being robbed and killed by the Midianites. The angel’s greeting could be read sarcastically: The Lord is with you...mighty warrior — hah! But instead, this greeting is a word of encouragement, a word of prophecy spoken into Gideon’s heart to reveal his new character into which he is about to be changed.

Application

When God meets you in your situation, he doesn’t come in with harsh words of criticism or accusation. He starts his transformational work in your life with a word of encouragement. He sees your potential and he wants you to see it too. God speaks to us through His Word, through time in prayer and he gives us words of hope, and ideas of what we could be that’ll blow your mind. You need to receive the idea of that new identity, that new name, and allow God to change you into that person.

Textual Explanation What follows is a conversation between the angel and Gideon, where Gideon protests, and the angel of God responds verse by verse:

Judges 6:13 (ESV)

And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.”

He questions God’s fairness - Why me?

He questions God’s power - why won’t he help?

He questions God’s faithfulness - where is he when I need him?

Judges 6:14 (ESV)

And the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?”

You’ve got God’s strength at your disposal - act as if you do!

When God sends you, you can’t fail.

Judges 6:15 (ESV)

And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”

I come from a poor family background.

I am the runt of the family - in a family of runts, I’m the runtiest! Woe is me.

Judges 6:16 (ESV)

And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”

You and me together are a majority.

You will strike down all the Midianites together. (This will be a cinch.

Application Many of us miss God's will for our lives because we just can't see ourselves in the role God has for us. But when God meets us, he always starts with a word of encouragement, telling us, “You can be more than you are right now.” And when we protest, he says, “I am with you.” After God meets us and shows us our potential, he takes the next step to change us from worriers to warriors, and that is the step of testing.

2. Testing

This is how the testing looked for Gideon:

Judges 6:25–27 (NIV)

That same night the Lord said to him, “Take the second bull from your father’s herd, the one seven years old. Tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. Then build a proper kind of altar to the Lord your God on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second bull as a burnt offering.” So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord told him…

Textual Explanation The background of the story is that during this time of oppression and depression in Israel, they had decided to try out false gods. They were compromising their faith. So God said, "Gideon, I have a little task for you to do before you take on the Midianites. You know that altar your dad built in the back yard? Tear it down and replace it with an altar to me.”

F.B. Meyer said, “We are first tested in the less before being called to the greater.” Gideon first had to prove himself with a small task before he could be trusted with the large task.

Application Before God will ever use you in a significant way, He will test you.

It may be a test of lordship.

If Gideon goes and tears down the Baal in his back yard, he is proving his allegiance to God. God wants to see who or what is number one in your life. What is the Baal in your back yard? What consumes all your attention? Is it a friendship, a career path, a status symbol, an achievement, your own image? God is going to test you in that area and see whether or not you will cut down that idol and make him number one in your life. Before Gideon could lead others to righteousness, he first had to be righteous himself.

It may be a test of relationship.

Gideon was asked to start right in his own home, with his own family. He had to confront family tradition. He had to break away from the past and stand up to his own father. Isn’t that one of the hardest places to live out your Christian commitment — in your own home? Do you ever limit what you do as a Christian because of what other people might think? Are you someone who does a great job at keeping family members from getting upset, but at the cost of living out your own convictions? The most difficult opposition a believer experiences is generally from those closest to him. Before Gideon could reform a nation, he first had to reform his home.

It may be a test of discipleship.

Gideon was a worrier. Gideon worried about what his father would think of him (6:27). He worried about what the men of the city would do to him (6:27). He worried about whether or not he was really hearing from God (6:17). He worried that he had gotten the message wrong (6:36). So, he tries a meal offering and fleeces to ask God to convince him he shouldn’t be worried. God even gave him the reassurance of overhearing the dream of one of the Midianites (7:10-11) so that he wouldn’t worry about going to battle. Worry and trust in God can’t coexist. The path of discipleship is blocked if a person has a stronghold of worry in their life. In order to make us more Christlike, God may test us in this area and prove himself to us so we can learn to replace worry with trust. Before Gideon could trust God in the battle, he had to trust God with his worries.

3. Filling

Our third and final step in how God turns worriers into warriors. We already learned about meeting, and testing, the last one is Filling.

Judges 6:34 (ESV)

But the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon, and he sounded the trumpet, and the Abiezrites were called out to follow him.

Textual Explanation Here’s where Gideon receives God's power. God’s power always comes after God’s testing. We read, ”the spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon." It's like saying "Gideon, I'm going to take over your body." Now he has the spiritual power to go with his new identity of “mighty warrior.”

Gideon’s first God-empowered act was to blow a trumpet to call the people to assemble for battle. His new role of leader was validated by the fact that 32,000 men responded to his call. Now, under the power of the Holy Spirit, Gideon obeys God in a series of very baffling instructions. His new character of “mighty warrior” is further being proven by his unquestioning obedience. It takes faith to follow God’s leading when that leading makes absolutely no sense.

First, Gideon asks, “Who is afraid?” and 22,000 men raised their hands. He sends them home.

Next, Gideon has them get a drink, and sends home 9,700 more men because their drinking method showed they were careless and lacked caution. They could have endangered the army.

That left 300 men. Still, Gideon obeys, even though the odds are now 450 to 1, and the battle seems hopeless.

The next thing God asks is that they assemble their weapons: clay pots, horns, and torches. Oh that sounds like a good arsenal. God not only uses unlikely people, He uses unlikely strategies.

Well, you know what happens. They surrounded the Midianite camp in the middle of the night, their torches covered by the clay pots, and at the signal, they blew the horns, broke the pots, held up the torches, and then just stood there and watched as the startled Midianite army annihilated each other.

Gideon Timeless Principle When you are filled with God’s power, it is easier to trust God, even when obeying him means doing something illogical. Sometimes, God has given us a new identity or a new calling, but the path on which he takes us doesn’t make sense. Gideon probably thought that running out there with 300 guys armed with clay pots was not exactly the path to “mighty warrior” he had envisioned. But a person who is filled with God’s power is also a person who trusts God, and obeys God even when it seems confusing.

Closing

So, do you need a meeting with God, and a word of encouragement from him today? We talk a lot about believing in God, but today, you need to know this: God believes in you. You can do something significant for God.

Are you in a time of testing? Is God seeing what is going to have first place in your life? Maybe you need to do some spiritual housecleaning. Maybe you need to start in your own family.

Are you in the battle? If you haven’t been filled with God’s power, you’re probably fatigued from trying to fight it on your own. You need to be filled with God’s power, then obey what he asks of you, even if it doesn’t make sense.

In closing I want to share the rest of the story: Gideon’s moment of brilliance was just that...a moment. The time from his meeting with God to his glorious victory was probably about one week. But the rest of Gideon’s life after that high point was spent in spiritual compromise, idol worship, and moral failure. He collected gold from everyone and formed an ephod that became the new idol, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his house (8:27). He fathered 70 sons with his many wives and concubine. Yes, he was the leader of the land, the judge, but he used his position for personal profit, sensual pursuits, and a return to spiritual bankruptcy.

So, while Gideon’s story is a great encouragement to the worried, the bullied, and the runtiest of the runts out there today, he is also a great warning to the victorious. His life tells us that we won’t experience continued victory over evil unless we walk consistently by faith. We may have great accomplishments in the past, but those accomplishments will not secure victory for us in the future if we do not continue living by faith in God and His Word. To God be the glory. AMEN