SERIES: RISE: TURN YOUR SETBACKS TO COME BACKS #1, RISE SLIDE 1

SERIES: RISE: TURN YOUR SETBACKS TO COME BACKS, RISE SLIDE

SLIDE 1, Born to Rise: The Day That Turns Your Life Around

TEXT: Judges 6 & 7 Gideon

Purpose Statement

We will see today that God does not need the majority for you to be a winner. God wants you to trust in Him. We may not know how we are going to come out on the winning side! We may not understand why He is doing things the way He is doing it but know this, when you feel alone know that God and you are the majority. *Phil. 3:13 SLIDE, EYES ON THE PRIZE SLIDE

(the change that should occur in their feelings, beliefs/faith, actions, lifestyle, etc. – the incompletion)

Sermon Opening

Dilemma we face.  So many times, we face a mountain of problems. In fact, if it isn’t one thing it’s another. We feel like going somewhere to hide. Somewhere that if we just had a moment maybe we can come up with a plan on our own to survive. Today I want to introduce you to a man by the name of Gideon. Gideon had problems and, in our text, today we will find him hiding working on his own plan.

  Read Judges 6:1 - 4 (NKJV)

1 Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, so the LORD delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years, 2 and the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel. Because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made for themselves the dens, the caves, and the strongholds which are in the mountains. 3 So it was, whenever Israel had sown, Midianites would come up; also Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them.  4 Then they would encamp against them and destroy the produce of the earth as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor donkey. 

The Problem

Problem in the Text

Problem 1: Vs. 1-4, The enemies of Israel took or destroyed anything Israel produced for their survival. *

Problem(s) in Our Lives

Problem 1: Sometimes we have the same problem. The more money we make, the more it takes. *

TRANSITION SENTENCE

But there is a God that sits high and looks low. He is the God of the bible. He is the God that placed the stars in the sky, He hung the sun and the moon, and he created you and me. He cares for us and He knows our situation. God has a plan for us, a plan not to harm us but to prosper us. The question is, will we turn to him?

Read verses 11 - 15

11 Now the Angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order 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, you mighty man of valor!" 13 Gideon said to Him, "O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, 'Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?' But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites." 14 Then the LORD turned to him and said, "Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?" 15 So he said to Him, "O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house."  * Maya Angelou SLIDE

We know from the first four verses that we read that the children of Isreal had major problems with their enemies. Problems that threaten their survival. But now we have read the real problem. God plans on delivering Isreal through Gideon but Gideon lacks confidence in God and himself. 13 Gideon said to Him, "O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, 'Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?' But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites." Then let’s read verse 15. 15 So he said to Him, "O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house." 

Gideon is preparing wheat in the winepress so that he can hide it from his enemies. But an angel of the Lord appears to him. This will be the day that will turn Gideon’s life around. *

Diagnosis in Our Lives

(Where do we see this in our lives)

We like Gideon, maybe working on our own plan. But today you came here looking for relief. And you are in the right place at the right time because today is the day that will turn your life around. *   Step 1 SLIDE

TRANSITION SENTENCE

Read verse 16 And the LORD said to him, "Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man." Just like God told Gideon that He would be with him. God has said to us that he would never leave us or forsake us. * YES I CAN SLIDE

Now Gideon asked God for a sign twice with the fleece and the dew. Vs. 36-40. (chapter 7) Then Gideon and the people got ready for the fight. They rested by the water well. And God told Gideon that he had too many people. He had 32,000 people. God told Gideon to tell all the scared people to go home. * When he did 22,000 left and went home! Then Gideon took the 10,000 he had with him down to the river. And the LORD said to Gideon, "Everyone who laps from the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set apart by himself; likewise everyone who gets down on his knees to drink." * 

The good news for Gideon is that God keeps his Word. In chapter 7: 24-25 God gave Gideon the victory.

The good news for us today is that the same God that gave Gideon the victory will give, you the victory!

Our Response

What should we do about this good news to resolve the problems we have?  God did/does/will do His part.  Now this is ours:

THEREFORE, because you made the effort to be here today you can RISE above your problems, RISE above your circumstances. You were BORN TO RISE! Even though Gideon considered himself to be the least in his father’s house, he was born to RISE! Your setback is a setup for you to come back. But not just to come back and be the same but to come back and be stronger than you were before.

To move forward, we have to let go of the past. But that is MUCH easier said than done! The past has a serious hold on some people, and letting go of past beliefs, past strategies, past hurts, past relationships, etc., is NOT easy. This message is designed to help motivate you to get serious about moving on from the past. Motivation is just the start. You’re going to need commitment and discipline to see this through. You need to start right now to view your past setbacks as God’s setup for a comeback. Ever felt like a setback that goes on and on means there is something wrong with you? 😌 That you are someone who just can’t get it done because if you could, you would have by now. 😭

🚫 It’s an easy trap to fall into—believing that setbacks we haven’t been able to overcome despite our best efforts means something about who we are. But is that really the case? But what if we viewed setbacks not as personal defeats but as external events—challenges that happen TO us, not definitions of who we are? 💯 How would your reaction to challenges change if you ❌ stopped seeing them as indicators of anything wrong about who you are as a person and ✅ started viewing them as a call to learn and grow stronger so you can rise out of this situation? 🏋🏿‍♀️💪🏿💪🏿

Setbacks are part of your journey; they do not determine your worth or your final destination IF…you learn how to finally rise above them.

Which is exactly what I’m talking about today and in this series: RISE: How to Turn Setbacks Into Comebacks

We’ve all had many setbacks and “failures” which can press down on you, convincing you that your abilities are fixed, your potential is limited, and your mindset must remain unchangeable. 🎒💔 It's like carrying a backpack filled with stones, each one representing a moment of doubt, failure, or setbacks that has convinced you your abilities are set in stone. But what if you could unpack that backpack? What if we could remove each “stone” of your past setbacks and failures so you are no longer weighed down by what you've been conditioned to believe about your limits? Imagine how much lighter, how much freer you will feel stepping forward without the weight of your setbacks because you now understand that “You Were Born to Rise”! 🌱🚶‍♂️