Impossible God Vs. Impossible Odds (2)
Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 3 viewsNotes
Transcript
Gideon
Gideon
This morning the belief I want to challenge is this: Faith should simplify your life. Many people try to use faith as a way to declutter their minds and fill in the gaps to questions they can’t answer. People believe faith should make our lives easier but what if:
The day of Pentecost didn’t make things easy; it made things powerful
Lion chasers have learned to be ok with uncertainty. Lion chasers learn to enjoy the twists and turns in life instead of dreading them. Most people think the most fun part of riding a motorcycle is the open straight road, but true motorcyclists love the twists and turns of a back country road that takes you to the top of a mountain with a killer view. It isn’t as easy of a ride, but it’s more interesting than driving straight. To be a lion chaser you can’t be afraid of the unknown or the what ifs. You must live in the moment and be willing to do whatever is asked of you no matter the cost.
To have an interesting life costs you your comfort.
To be certain of God means we have to be uncertain in all our ways; we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness; it should rather be an expression of breathless expectation.
Challenge and adversity is what kills the flesh and makes room for God.
I want you to open your bibles to Judges 6. During this time we find that Israel is in Judgement due to their behavior. First thing we need to understand is this: Most, if not all, of the biblical promises are if then statements. They require obedience. Israel was guaranteed that God would be with them IF the kept His commands and follow God. I believe this is also the warning to God’s people today. God is faithful, but he is also just. you can’t expect the favor of God to poured on your while you run around in rebellion.
Much like God, he has Grace for us and them. And the Angel of the Lord comes on the scene.
11 Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites.
12 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.”
Right off the bat you don’t expect this title to be given to Gideon. He is working in secret so that the Midianites don’t come steal his food. He isn’t in a place of bravery. He isn’t in a place of training. He is just barely scraping by and living in the shadows. And Gideon in his response skips over the compliment. How many of us know someone that when you compliment them they act like you didn’t say a word?
This is why I am a firm believer that your title, your calling isn’t earned it’s given. God knows your Character and he knows who you will become.
13 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.”
14 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?”
15 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.”
God is setting the scene. He doesn’t take the biggest, the best, the smartest. God doesn’t play the favorible odds. HE finds the most unlikely and turns them into warriors. This is why I said before
Lion chasers aren’t born they are made; Great warriors aren’t born they are made.
Every one of us has an amazing calling on our lives. The biggest question when we are done giving all our excuses as to why we aren’t good enough can we embrace the call God has on our lives?
16 And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”
I love this statement as one man-There are two schools of thought about this statement I believe both are true. Israel would fight with unity and cooperation as one nation, but also every Mideonite would be destroyed as though they were one person. With precision and speed.
God doesn’t address Gideon’s excuses. He just states that God will be with Him.
Gideon wasn’t a strong man of faith. He wasn’t courageous He wasn’t a mighty mand of valor, But
He could be- What could you be?
The reality is this:
God will Mold you and shape you; if you allow him to to sculpt you as he sees fit and not according to how you see yourself.
And for no other reason that I felt this verse deep in the feels
23 But the Lord said to him, “Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die.”
There are times in my calling when this is the only verse that would bring me comfort.
Lion chasers are counterintuitive. They aren’t afraid of venturing off the map into terra ingnita. The unknown doesn’t scare them. It beckons them like a long- lost love or childhood dream.
Walking out your calling is both scary and messy.
You’re going to be called to take steps, but even the baby steps may seem scary. Gideon was called to fight the Mideonites, but first he had to get his feet wet. He had to start building a resume. God is the resume building business.
Faith isn’t meant to make your life easy; at times it will outright complicate your life
25 That night the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s bull, and the second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it
Before Israel could be saved it had to be purified. There are times where we believe things are falling apart, but they are jsut falling into place. You may be called to move. YOu may be called to do something you haven’t done before. God may be redifining everything you are.
I believe for this church we are in a redefining state. These past 9 months we took many small steps of faith. We purified the church. We prayed over it. We repented for it. We dealt with it’s past demons and we are going to walk in freedom. If you feel the next step is too big for you I want you to take courage over the next verse.
27 So Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had told him. But because he was too afraid of his family and the men of the town to do it by day, he did it by night.
God Just need faithful obedience. Many would call this cowardly, but I would call this faithful. God didn’t specify time. He just gave an order. THe men of the town came against him and Gideon’s father, not Gideon stood up. I believe Gideon was hiding again. Then the towns people renamed Gideon. Jurabbaal because Gideon contended with Baal and won. The Midianites apparently heard about what Gideon had done.
33 Now all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East came together, and they crossed the Jordan and encamped in the Valley of Jezreel.
The enemy assembled.
When you take giant leaps of faith it will get the enemies attention. He will come to attack you
I could imagine Gideon here. Hiding form the mod, hearing about the on coming army. Cleansing Israel of their false God’s so that God can work on their behalf. I don’t know how many of you have been there, but you’re looking at everything against you. The problems are big. The calling is absurd. and you stand there with all the stress worry and concern, not knowing what to pray. And armed with nothing but trouble and calling. And then the sigh.
1 Listen to my words, Lord; consider my sighing.
Some translations use the word groaning or mumuring, but the literal definition of the Hebrew word hagig is sighing.
Other translations may be murmuring, complaining, musing.
You’re in that mode of defeatest prayer. Like David it’s full of woe is me. Then
34 But the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon, and he sounded the trumpet, and the Abiezrites were called out to follow him.
In our day the Holy Spirit is given to believers. In Gideons day it was a rare occurrence when the Holy Spirit entered someone’s life. It’s representative of God’s power.
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
Interestingly enough the Greek word for groanings is stenagmos which means sigh or groaning. We have the Holy Spirit sighing. Some of us are busy sighing in noise when we should be sighing in tongues.
The Spiritual connotations about a trumpet blast.
A trumpet was sounded for celebration and joy. To start worship. To call to arms for battle. a Call to repentance or judgement.
As a church this is our call. We are in the winning stages of our battle. We are coming together. I believe it’s the big call to increase the size of our army. Gideons army was reduced to 300. My prayer is that the church begins to reach the lost and we reach 300. I believe it’s our job right now to prostilitize and reach 300.
So we come to the reduction of the army.
Remember the orgional Number Gideon had was 22,000. The Medianite army was 135,000 men.
They already had a losing number, but this shows the importance of knowing the people that are on your side are actually on your side. The first 12,000 people Gideon lost were the unfaithful and doubting people. Thy were filled with fear and trembling found in Judges 7:3. It’s important to remember what negative talk and fear can do to the vision God has given us.
Gideon gets reduced to $10,000 people in one hit just by telling people if they want to go home go home.
Faith is like a toothbrush: Everybody should have one and use it regularly, but it isn’t safe to use somebody else’s.
God often times will put use in insurmountable odds because if we can do it we begin to wonder off of our faith. When King Uzziah was weaker he relied on God, but he was marvelously helped——until he was strong.
15 In Jerusalem he made machines, invented by skillful men, to be on the towers and the corners, to shoot arrows and great stones. And his fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped, till he was strong.
16 But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction. For he was unfaithful to the Lord his God and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.
When he was strong he didn’t want to acknowledge the help any more.
On the other hand this isn’t the first time God made the statement if people are fearful let them go home.
8 And the officers shall speak further to the people, and say, ‘Is there any man who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go back to his house, lest he make the heart of his fellows melt like his own.’
Fear is contagious. Anger is contagious. And if people in your camp aren’t on your side than you are doomed to fail. It’s better to advance with a few faithful men and women than a large army who spreading discouragement like a disease.
The second testing was the lapping and kneeling. This to me is counter intuitive. You want the watchful ones, but those are the ones who got dismissed. There are many who try to put spiritual significance into this, but nothing in the text suggests why one over the other.
What we do know is this:
1 Samuel 14:6 (ESV)
6 … It may be that the Lord will work for us, for nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few.”
Also the importance of hanging onto the promise when the battle begins.
14 And his comrade answered, “This is no other than the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel; God has given into his hand Midian and all the camp.”
All through this Gideon had 5 instances where God strengthen Gideon’s faith. Two of those 5 happen now right before the battle. 2 happened with the initial call from the angel of the Lord and 1 happened with the fleece. The reason we didn’t cover the fleece is because far too many Christians try to build a practice off of one instance, but understand this the graciousness of God will make sure to strengthen your faith before the battle.