Fighting From Victory

Introduction

Started new series on Identity

Last week we talked about fighting for our Identity in Christ. This week I want to talk about how we fight when our Identity is in Christ.

I want to go through the story of Gideon for today’s message. This is a man who went from not knowing His identity in Christ to winning a battle without throwing a single blow.

Pray

Segment 1: You are not who your past says you are

Judges 7:2–22 ESV

2 The Lord said to Gideon, “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’ 3 Now therefore proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home and hurry away from Mount Gilead.’ ” Then 22,000 of the people returned, and 10,000 remained. 4 And the Lord said to Gideon, “The people are still too many. Take them down to the water, and I will test them for you there, and anyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you,’ shall go with you, and anyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ shall not go.” 5 So he brought the people down to the water. And the Lord said to Gideon, “Every one who laps the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set by himself. Likewise, every one who kneels down to drink.” 6 And the number of those who lapped, putting their hands to their mouths, was 300 men, but all the rest of the people knelt down to drink water. 7 And the Lord said to Gideon, “With the 300 men who lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hand, and let all the others go every man to his home.” 8 So the people took provisions in their hands, and their trumpets. And he sent all the rest of Israel every man to his tent, but retained the 300 men. And the camp of Midian was below him in the valley. 9 That same night the Lord said to him, “Arise, go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hand. 10 But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Purah your servant. 11 And you shall hear what they say, and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the camp.” Then he went down with Purah his servant to the outposts of the armed men who were in the camp. 12 And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the people of the East lay along the valley like locusts in abundance, and their camels were without number, as the sand that is on the seashore in abundance. 13 When Gideon came, behold, a man was telling a dream to his comrade. And he said, “Behold, I dreamed a dream, and behold, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat.” 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.” 19 So Gideon and the hundred men who were with him came to the outskirts of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, when they had just set the watch. And they blew the trumpets and smashed the jars that were in their hands. 20 Then the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the jars. They held in their left hands the torches, and in their right hands the trumpets to blow. And they cried out, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” 21 Every man stood in his place around the camp, and all the army ran. They cried out and fled. 22 When they blew the 300 trumpets, the Lord set every man’s sword against his comrade and against all the army. And the army fled as far as Beth-shittah toward Zererah, as far as the border of Abel-meholah, by Tabbath.

Is that not one of the weirdest stories in the bible? If you just read this segment of scripture without any other context it actually sounds like Gideon is a bit of a badass.

This guy lets God cut his army down to 1% of its original size, and has faith to walk into the camp and smash some jars and expect the victory.

But that would be a very skewed image of what actually was happening. See to fully understand how significant this story is you have to read a little passage from the chapter before in

Judges 6:12–15 “12 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.” 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.””

The truth is that Gideon may have been a little bit of a coward and a whinge. Look at what he replies to the Lord:

In v13 he has a bit of a whinge about God forsaking them

and then when the Lord calls him again he replies in v15 “his clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and he is the weakest in his house.”

That is Gideon’s identity - from the weakest clan, the weakest in his house. Weakness. It is how he has defined himself.

But I want us to pay attention to how the Lord addresses Gideon. In v12 The Lord appears and immediately calls him “O mighty man of valor”

And then again in v14 “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian”

God sees the man that Gideon is meant to be - not the man Gideon is currently.

Your identity is not who you think you are - it’s who God says you are.

Gideon was focused on where he was from, what he had done - God was focused on where he was going, what he was called to do.

You know if you look at Gideon’s excuse in v13 - he’s allowing all that has happened in the past to form his identity: “Why has all this happened to us? The lord has forsaken us! Where are the deeds of the Lord?”

We can be so lost in our SITUATIONS that we fail to perceive the SAVIOUR.

God didn’t even acknowledge his complaint - He just continued to speak Identity over him. “Go in this might of yours and save Israel.”

Are we allowing our circumstances to affect our identity? Does our current situation influence our Identity more than the other way around?

Circumstances don’t dictate who we are - who we are should dictate how we navigate our circumstances

God does not want your identity to be shaken by your CIRCUMSTANCES, your identity should only be shaped by His PURPOSE and PLANS for you.

ILLUSTRATION: Tattoo on the mind

When I was in university, my friend wanted to get his first tattoo - and so asked me to come to the store with him. Now, what you need to know is that I was reluctant because firstly - I have 0 tattoos and no desire to get one, but also I was terrified of needles at the time.

Not sure how many people have been into a tattoo parlour here but the place we went to was dingy. Like hay street mall upstairs somewhere dingy - they were selling bongs out the front (which at the time I thought were just creative drinking glasses), there were a whole bunch of unsavoury characters hanging out the front (was probably Dan and his friends at the time).

Anyway we went inside and my friend sat in the chair and this old asian uncle began what is effectively voluntary stabbing. As my friend proceeded to scream for the next hour, I decided to look in the book of tattoos to see what people commonly get. There were the dragons, the tramp stamps, the tigers, the asian characters, all the usual.

But then I saw a really unusual one. It was a picture of someone’s actual back with the words “Born to lose” in BOLD letters like right across the back. I honestly thought it was a joke - so I showed my friend and we had a bit of a giggle about it amidst the screams.

And I remember quietly muttering to myself - “Man I wonder why anybody would ever get that tattoo.” and very quietly, this asian uncle who had barely said a word the entire time, very slowly raised his head to make eye contact with me and said, “Before tattoo on body, tattoo on mind.” then just went straight back to work. How profound is that? Really made me wonder why my friend was getting a tattoo of a flying unicorn with a rainbow coming out of its ass.

But that phrase sticks with me - Before tattoo on body, tattoo on mind. Before your identity is on your body, it is already in your mind.

The things we allow into our spirt, the things we dwell on, the narrative we buy into - we allow these things to shape our identity.

Gideon probably had years of listening to people talking bad about his family, maybe even his family calling him the weakest member. And it ended up becoming his identity.

We need to listen to what God has to say about our identity.

Segment 2: Don’t mistake Pruning for Loss

You know the part of this story that most people who know it would bring up? Why did God reduce Gideon’s army by 99%?

Gideon would have watched on in crippling fear as the Lord brought his army down from 10,000 to just 300.

Maybe you feel like the Lord is whittling down whatever strength you have left. You may feel tired, ill-equipped, exhausted, empty in the fight. You may be wondering why the Lord has left you in such a state?

Learn this lesson: Don’t mistake Pruning for Loss

What you feel like you’re losing today may be God setting you up for a victory.

Remember what He said to Gideon before he began cutting the men from him? “Lest Israel boast over me saying “my own hand has saved me”.

God wasn’t taking away from Gideon for no reason - He was setting Gideon up for a decisive victory

Segment 3: Fight From Victory

But there is another lesson that we may miss if we don’t pay attention here.

In the midst of God whittling down Gideon’s army - he speaks from the perspective of victory. God KNOWS the battle has already been won.

See some of us are like Gideon right at the start - his situation shows that he’s bleeding men, sustaining losses, the situation is unbelievably bad. Things don’t look good.

We can sometimes internalise the loss, internalise the discouragement and allow it to speak into our identity.

Here’s one thing every Christian needs to know about their identity - you aren’t fighting FOR victory - you’re fighting FROM victory.

1 John 5:4 “4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.”

Victory is a CRUCIAL part of your Christian identity

Sometimes when we’re so invested in the fight, we don’t realise that we’ve allowed the situation, the weariness, the discouragement to creep into our identity. We start to believe that we’re fighting FOR the victory

And we can lose our peace, we can lose our rested-ness, we lose our trust in God, we forget that He is in control. We allow the situations to dictate our identity, not have our identity dictate the situation.

When it comes to God’s will there is no such thing as needing to fight FOR the win, the only win that will ever matter has ALREADY occurred - all you need to do is stay in His WILL. It’s not a matter of fighting FOR the win, it’s a matter of walking in His will.

Never forget: If God is on your side, if you are walking in the will of God - victory is not a question of “if”, victory is a question of “when”. You do not fight FOR a victory, you are fighting FROM it

ILLUSTRATION: Tim Keller 10 Dollars ReWrite

Have you ever hung out with a Billionaire before? I have before - and I can tell you that it is eye opening to say the least. I actually had brunch with Laurence Escalante - whom you may not have heard of but is one of Australia’s richest men. He has a car collection called the LEE collection for those of you on instagram. Anyway he let my friend and I drive one of his 1/200 aston martins to brunch.

At brunch I made a comment about how nice his watch was. He told me it was a custom rolex Daytona that he had sent to Paris to have the strap and face customised with a company called MAD watches. The watch itself was now worth around $200k. And then he said, here take a look - and he took it off his wrist and threw it at me.

Alright guys - the closest i’ve come to dying before was when I nearly drowned as a kid and my mum had to save me. But you know the whole life flashing before your eyes thing? Yeah that didn’t happen then. But when Laurence threw his $200k custom rolex at me, trust me when I say - my entire life flashed before my eyes - the baby bits and everything, bits that I don’t even remember. It legit felt like that watch was in the air for eternity.

Thankfully I caught it - which is why I still, you know, have possessions. But I was actually a bit annoyed - and I sorta scolded Laurence, I was like “oh my god - why would you throw that, what would you have done if I had dropped that?” without skipping a beat, he took a sip of his coffee and was like “It’s fine - I’d just buy another one.” Bro. I was like “…batman?”

My point is that as Christians we are spiritual billionaires. What would a spiritual billionaire do if they lost $10? Would they get all upset and call the police and demand they find the lost $10? Would accuse all their friends of theft and demand proof that they didn’t steal from you? No - you lost $10. So what? You are far too rich to be concerned about that kind of loss.

So maybe this week something didn’t go the way you thought it would, maybe someone said something that upset you, maybe you had a setback in one of your plans, maybe you’re having a relationship issue - these are real losses. But what are you going to do as a Christian? Do you let it steal ALL of your peace? Do you let it disrupt your contentment, do you let it ruin your relationship with God?

Can I humbly submit - that if this is the case then you are losing touch with your Identity in Christ. Because as a Christian you are a spiritual billionaire and you are losing your mind over $10.

Segment 3: Identity shapes the way we fight

The last thing I want to point out from this story is perhaps the weirdest part of the story. And that is the WAY that Gideon fought this battle.

In Judges 7:20–21 “20 Then the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the jars. They held in their left hands the torches, and in their right hands the trumpets to blow. And they cried out, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” 21 Every man stood in his place around the camp, and all the army ran. They cried out and fled.”

Did you notice that Gideon and his men never even raised a sword in the battle? What an unconventional way to fight, let alone win a battle. And yet they did.

Here’s the last thing I want to catch from this story tonight - Your identity shapes the way you fight.

Gideons men broke jars and blew trumpets to get the victory - they didn’t fight like the world would have fought. They didn’t have numbers, they didn’t use conventional weaponry of the time.

They didn’t fight with swords, they fought with obedience. Gideon’s victory was secured by obedience - not ability. Gideon won the battle because he obeyed God, not because of his strength.

If we identify as Christians then our weapon is obedience and surrender, not conventional human strength or wisdom. The battle is the Lord’s, not ours. What we need to do is be obedient in the midst of the trial, obedient in the midst of the battle.

Christians don’t fight battles the way the world fights battles - we don’t use human strength and ability, we don’t use human cunning and wisdom. Proverbs 3:5-6

How many Christians today are fighting battles in their own strength? How many Christians today feel like they’re losing territory that has ALREADY been won by the Lord? How many Christians are falling for that lie of the enemy?

ILLUSTRATION: Tony Campolo on taking communion

I’m reminded of a story told by author Tony Campolo:

Sitting with my parents at a Communion service when I was very young, perhaps six or seven years old, I became aware of a young woman in the pew in front of us who was sobbing and shaking. The minister had just finished reading the passage of Scripture written by Paul that says, "Whosoever shall eat the bread and drink the cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord" (1 Corinthians 11:27). As the Communion plate with its small pieces of bread was passed to the crying woman before me, she waved it away and then lowered her head in despair. It was then that my Sicilian father leaned over her shoulder and, in his broken English, said sternly, "Take it, girl! It was meant for you. Do you hear me?"

She raised her head and nodded—and then she took the bread and ate it. I knew that at that moment some kind of heavy burden was lifted from her heart and mind. Since then, I have always known that a church that could offer Communion to hurting people was a special gift from God.

I feel some people here are like this girl - the hardship and the battles of life have beaten you down. Maybe it’s even started to affect your identity, maybe you can’t see the victory anymore.

maybe you feel unworthy, of that sin has been taking over your life, or that the enemy has too strong a foothold ini your life.

I’m here to remind you today - as a Christian there is no battle in your life that God cannot overcome. There is no sin too great to leave behind, there is no unworthiness so great that the love of Christ cannot overcome it, there is no enemy that can overpower you and hold you back.

Some of us need to leave behind the lies of the enemy tonight and be reminded of who we are, and more importantly WHOSE we are. We need to be reminded of WHO is fighting on our side.

Altar Call

Take communion together.