God’s Saving Work Overcomes the Your Weakness and Sin

Judges  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented
0 ratings
· 10 views

We are looking at God’s salvation overcomes our sin and weakness

Notes
Transcript

Introduction

**one of the first games that you learn to play as a little kid is a game we often call “tag”
-the point of the game is to try to stay as far away from the person who’s doing the tagging and not let them touch you
-Now, you can certainly play this game in a wide open space such as a grassy field or a parking lot
-But it’s more fun to play in a place that’s crowded with obstacles, like a playground or in Walmart (which you may get kicked out of if you try that)
-The reason it’s more fun in these kinds of environments, is that you can use obstacles to keep the tagger away from you
-You see this in movies all the time where someone is being chased by bad guys through a city or marketplace, and they’re tipping over outdoor grocery stands or tables or chairs to try to slow their pursuers down
-And if you’re the one who’s doing the chasing, you’ve got to find a way to overcome all the obstacles that are being thrown at you
-You need to be fast, but you also need to be absolutely relentless to overcome these obstacles**
We’re studying the book of Judges, and the theme of the book is God’s Compassionate Rescue of Ruined Sinners
-We’re in the middle of the story of Gideon
-And last week we saw God’s rescue operation laid out for us
-We saw that God saves sinners through the conviction of His Word, the power of His presence, and the call to obedience
-Tonight, we’re going to see how God accomplishes the rescue of His people from their oppressors, the Midianites
-And specifically, we’re going to look at the obstacles that God overcomes in rescuing ruined sinners
-In our text this evening, we see a lot of weakness and sin from the people of God
-But instead of discouraging us, it ought to encourage us as we see that these obstacles do not deter God
-Rather, we see the relentless mercy of God as He overcomes these obstacles in rescuing ruined sinners
The title of this evening’s message is God’s Saving Work Overcomes Your Weakness and Sin, and we’ll see three specific obstacles that God overcomes in order to save sinners like you and me
**pray**

1. God’s Saving Work Overcomes Your Doubt (6:33-40)

-All the Midianites and their allies had come and set up camp in a place called Valley of Jezreel, which is a little bit South of the Sea of Galilee
-And they’re ready to swoop in and take all the food and the grain and anything else that’s valuable again, like they do every so often
-God’s Spirit comes on Gideon, and he rallies a large group of the Israelites from a few of the tribes to come join him in fighting against the Midianites
-However, Gideon is having doubts
-Perhaps when he saw the size of his army compared to the size of the enemy army, he thought:
“Am I really sure about this?”
“Was that guy I met the other week really the Angel of the Lord, or was that just a weird dream?”
And so Gideon makes a request to God:

36 So Gideon said to God, “If You will save Israel by my hand

Now, first of all, this is not meant to be a positive example of how to discern the will of God
-How do we know that?
-Notice the text:
-Twice Gideon uses the phrase: “as You have said”
-Does everyone see that in your Bible? Once at the end of vs. 36 and once at the end of vs. 37
-Gideon knows exactly what God has said
-But he’s doubting God’s words
-And so he asks God for a sign
-So this is not a positive example of what we should do
-You shouldn’t take this example and say, “I’ve been wondering if God wants me to go on vacation in July, so God, if you want me to do that, will you please let me pass 3 yellow cars on the way to work today, and then I’ll know that’s a yes from You.”
-Gideon here is lacking faith
-He’s doubting
-He knows what God has said
-But he just really wants extra extra assurance
-This never happens to us, does it?
-No one here would ever doubt God’s promises to provide for you financially, would you?
-I’m sure no one here has ever struggled to trust God’s Sovereignty and fall into worry, have you?
-None of us would ever doubt God’s goodness, or love, or faithfulness in our own lives right?
-Can we just be honest for a minute?
-Every single day, our greatest battle is deciding whether we trust what God has told us or not?
-This was the first temptation of the human race, when Satan asked Eve, “did God really say?”
-And brothers and sisters, I know that many of you, like me, battle doubt and faithlessness
-We’re like Peter, out on the waters, struggling to keep our eyes on Jesus instead of looking at the waves crashing around us
-We have a tendency to begin to lose faith
-You wonder if God will take care of you and your family
-You wonder if God will take you through hardship and walk alongside you in it
-You wonder if God will really grant you strength in overcoming sin
And look how God responds to Gideon’s weak faith:

38 And it was so. When he rose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece together, he wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowlful of water.

What a relief for Gideon! He’s now ready to go face the foe and fight the battle!
-He’ll never doubt God again, right??

39 Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me, but let me speak just once more: Let me test, I pray, just once more with the fleece; let it now be dry only on the fleece, but on all the ground let there be dew.”

How on earth could Gideon be so faithless?
-God gave him exactly what he asked for, and it still wasn’t enough!
-Surely, God’s going to be so angry with him, right??

40 And God did so that night. It was dry on the fleece only, but there was dew on all the ground.

-The point of this text is not to condone or excuse Gideon and his lack of faith
-He shouldn’t have doubted God’s Word, much less have continued in doubt after God’s assurance
-No, the point of this passage is this: God is a gracious God who condescends to doubting sinners
-Now, this doesn’t mean that God is going to give you a miraculous sign when you ask for it
-He’s under no obligation to make you pass 3 yellow cars on your way to work
-But He is a God intent on rescuing doubters like us
-He’s a God who’s saving work won’t be overcome by our doubt
-He’s patient and gracious, even when we are struggling in our faith
-The disciples felt overwhelmed by their inadequate faith, and asked Jesus, “increase our faith”
-And Jesus told them that even if they had faith the size of a mustard see, they’d be able to do incredible things
-Why is that?
-Because even a little faith, if it’s placed in the right object, is all we need
-We serve a God who can overcome our weak faith
-Who can bolster us and walk with us
-And can use us despite our weaknesses
-He sent Jesus, the perfect Savior, to save sinners, even those with weak faith
-And this great Savior, Jesus Christ, continues to walk with and sanctify Christians who struggle doubts
-Why?
-Because that’s Who He is
-Jesus is the One who, when the father of the demon-possessed child cried out to him, “Lord, increase my faith!”
-He healed that man’s son
-He’s the perfect Savior who rescues and helps the doubting
So first, we’ve seen that God’s Saving Work Overcomes Your Doubt

2. God’s Saving Work Overcomes Your Pride (7:1-8)

-Gideon and his army set up shop by the hill of Moreh
-But God has a problem with Gideon’s army

2 And the LORD said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against Me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’

**Now, I’ve never been in a fight before
-I was homeschooled, so I managed to avoid bullies most of my growing up years
-But I do know this about fights: it helps to have more people on your side of the fight than on the other side
-I did play football growing up, and the nice thing about football, is you always have an even number of people for each team on the field
-It’s always 11 for us and 11 for them
-I can’t imagine walking out onto the football field, and saying, “you know what would be fun? It would be a really great time if we just had about 5 or 6 guys out here on our team. I think I’d enjoy that more than having all 11 of us out here.”**
-But this is what God does; He sends many Israelite soldiers home
-And notice why He says Israel has too many:
-He doesn’t want anyone in Israel to claim that they were able to save themselves
-God knows the sinful tendencies of the human heart
-He knows that there’s something in each of us that desperately wants to take the credit for God’s saving work
-Why do so many reject Jesus today?
-So many people don’t want to accept the free gift of salvation
-They want to believe that somehow they’ve earned their way to heaven
**They’re like the man in C.S. Lewis’s fictional book the Great Divorce, where a bus load of people from hell visit heaven
-And one of these men would rather go back to hell instead of staying in heaven, because he thinks he’s a good person
-He just wants his rights
-He’s always been a decent person, and he’s says he’s not interested in taking anyone’s bleeding charity
-And one of the people from heaven implores him: “take the bleeding charity!”**
**Or they’re like my friend, a 65 year old man, that I meet with every few months
-And he thinks church and religion are completely pointless, because all you need to do is be a decent person and not hurt others, and you’ll be ok
-And he hates the Gospel!
-He hates the message that you can simply be forgiven through simply repenting and trusting in Jesus**
So what does God do to overcome this obstacle in Judges 7?
-first, he tells Gideon to tell anyone who’s afraid that they can go home and sit this battle out
-And so out of his 32,000 soldiers, 22,000 leave, leaving only 10,000 left
-And listen, if I wasn’t scared at the beginning, I certainly would have been after watching 2/3s of my fellow soldiers leave!
-But even after . . .

4 But the LORD said to Gideon, “The people are still too many;

God still isn’t willing to allow Israel to go into battle, even after losing so many soldiers, so He decides to whittle their army down further
-He tells Gideon to take his men to some stream or body of water, and tells Gideon:

6 “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.”

And so all those who lap from the water with their tongues number 300 men, and those are the ones that God decides to keep
-Now, some people want to try to say, “the people who lap with their tongues, their the ones who are alert and able to look around, while those who get on their knees aren’t alert and ready, and so that’s how God determined this.”
-That sounds nice, but the problem is that the text doesn’t say anything remotely like that
-Remember, the point of this test is not to see who’s a really alert soldier
-The point of this test is to whittle down Israel’s numbers to where God will get the glory and they won’t be able to brag
-That means that of the 10,000 soldiers, which was only 1/3 of the original number
-Of those 10,000, only 3% remain to fight
-And so, verse 7:

7 Then the LORD said to Gideon, “By the three hundred men who lapped I will save you, and deliver the Midianites into your hand. Let all the other people go, every man to his place.” 8 So the people took provisions and their trumpets in their hands. And he sent away all the rest of Israel, every man to his tent, and retained those three hundred men.

-Can you imagine being one of those 300 remaining men?
“Hey, where all of those soldiers going?
“Gideon sent them away.”
“Why??”
“He said God told him too. God wants to make sure that no one brags when He wins us this victory.”
-And that is exactly the kind of Savior our God is
-How did God accomplish our salvation?
-Through giving us a bunch of rules to follow?
-By giving us some noble and dangerous quest to fulfill in order to earn our salvation
-No
-Rather, His Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, came to earth and took on flesh
-He lived a perfect life and suffered and died for our sins and rose again
-And the ONLY way that anyone gets saved is by repenting of their sin and placing their faith in Jesus
-That’s it
-No works can earn it
-No baptism can accomplish it
-No noble feat can pay for it
-Why?
-So Jesus alone gets the glory as the One who does the saving, not us
-If you’re a Christian, you have not been saved because of your church attendance
-Your kindness
-Your Awana badges
-Your education at a Christian school
-Or you knowing lots about the Bible
-You are only saved by the finished work of Christ, because God shares none of His glory with another
-That is incredibly humbling
-And incredibly reassuring
-Because even in my worst of struggles
-And my biggest moments of pride
-I don’t maintain my salvation
-Christ does
-Since my good performance never saved me, it also doesn’t maintain my salvation
-I can rest in the God who’s saving work cannot be stopped by human pride
-So we’ve seen the God’s saving work overcomes your doubt,
-We’ve seen that God’s saving work overcomes your pride

3. God’s Saving Work Overcomes Your Fear (7:9-15)

-The time has come for battle
-Gideon and his 300 versus the Midianites and their countless host

9 It happened on the same night that the LORD said to him, “Arise, go down against the camp, for I have delivered it into your hand.

However, without God even waiting for Gideon to reply, He tells him:

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.”

God doesn’t even give Gideon an opportunity to ask for another wet fleece!
-Rather, God knows that Gideon is fearful
-And so He offers to reassure Him
-So Gideon goes into the camp . . .

13 And when Gideon had come, there was a man telling a dream to his companion. He said, “I have had a dream: To my surprise, a loaf of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian; it came to a tent and struck it so that it fell and overturned, and the tent collapsed.”

14 Then his companion answered and said, “This is nothing else but the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel! Into his hand God has delivered Midian and the whole camp.”

And how does Gideon respond?

15 And so it was, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, that he worshiped. He returned to the camp of Israel, and said, “Arise, for the LORD has delivered the camp of Midian into your hand.”

Gideon was afraid
-He knew God had spoken and told him to go fight
-But when he looked at his tiny band of men, and saw how many people they were up against, he lacked courage
-And once again, His Savior stepped in to overcome His weakness and sin
-It’s easy to fall into fear, isn’t it?
-What will following Christ cost me?
-Will I be mocked or ridiculed?
-Will I ever be able to get married since I’m only supposed to marry a Christian?
-How would I be able to handle a hard trial?
-How would I be able to make it if a loved one dies?
**Corrie Ten Boom, a Christian living in the Netherlands during WWII is famous for her story of courageously hiding Jews from the Nazis
-Eventually, she was caught and spent 10 months in Nazi concentration camps
-In her famous book entitled “The Hiding Place,” she tells of a lesson her father taught her about fear that strengthened her in those hard years
-When she was around 10 years old, she became afraid of the thought of dying
-One day, she opened up to her father about her fear
“Corrie, when you and I go to Amsterdam-when do I give you your ticket?”
-“Why, just before we get on the train.”
-“Exactly. And our wise Father in heaven knows when we’re going to need things, too. Don’t run out ahead of Him, Corrie. When the time comes that some of us will have to die, you will look into your heart and find the strength you need-just in time.”**
Here in this text, God graciously condescends to Gideon to help him through his fear
-And he does the same to sinners like you and me today
-Although we may be fearful, our Savior Jesus Christ, the captain of our salvation, condescends to our weakness and helps us through our fears
-When Jairus heard that his daughter had died, Jesus told him:

“Don’t be afraid. Only believe.”

-You too can worship Him like Gideon did, because He’s there with us in our fears
-He’s willing to condescend and fortify us in our fears
-He walks with us throughs those times and can comfort us with his presence
So we’ve seen that God’s saving work overcomes our doubts, our pride, and our fear

Conclusion

-Let’s see how the story ends:

He returned to the camp of Israel, and said, “Arise, for the LORD has delivered the camp of Midian into your hand.” 16 Then he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put a trumpet into every man’s hand, with empty pitchers, and torches inside the pitchers. 17 And he said to them, “Look at me and do likewise; watch, and when I come to the edge of the camp you shall do as I do: 18 When I blow the trumpet, I and all who are with me, then you also blow the trumpets on every side of the whole camp, and say, ‘The sword of the LORD and of Gideon!’ ”

19 So Gideon and the hundred men who were with him came to the outpost of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just as they had posted the watch; and they blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers that were in their hands. 20 Then the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers—they held the torches in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands for blowing—and they cried, “The sword of the LORD and of Gideon!” 21 And every man stood in his place all around the camp; and the whole army ran and cried out and fled. 22 When the three hundred blew the trumpets, the LORD set every man’s sword against his companion throughout the whole camp; and the army fled to Beth Acacia, toward Zererah, as far as the border of Abel Meholah, by Tabbath.

23 And the men of Israel gathered together from Naphtali, Asher, and all Manasseh, and pursued the Midianites.

Don’t we have a wonderful Savior?
-God came and saved his weak, sinful people from their oppressors
-And 1200 years later, Jesus Christ came to save doubting, proud, fearful sinners like you and me
-If you don’t know Jesus as your Savior and Lord, please repent and trust Him today
-And if you’re a Christian, He continues to come to your aid and overcome your sin and weakness so that He can bring you safely home to stand in His presence with great joy
Related Media
See more
Related Sermons
See more
Earn an accredited degree from Redemption Seminary with Logos.
Copyright 2026 LogosFeatures|Pricing|Privacy|Terms of Use|Support