Gideon's Potential
Notes
Transcript
Welcome
Welcome
Good morning Emmanuel family! We have a special service planned today, and I am so excited for you to get to hear our guests. We had planned to hear from Ronda on April 5th, but as you all know things went sideways with some of our plans due to COVID-19. But today, we are going to have some time to worship the Lord together, then hear more from Ronda about Isaiah 117 House and how it has become a movement to reshape and rethink entry into Foster Care. We will have a special offering at the end for those that want to come alongside Isaiah 117 House, and then I want to invite you to join me on Zoom. Last week we had nearly 20 folks, spread out from Europe to PA to Knoxville. It was a great time of sharing as well as prayer.
Good morning church family, and I want to say to all the moms, “Happy Mother’s Day.” This might be one of the most underrated holidays in my opinion. Moms play such a big role in nurturing and developing us to become who we are that I want us to take some time and give our moms a special SHOUT OUT! We sure appreciate the women in our lives who serve selflessly. You deserve more than the words we are saying right now, but we want to wish you a Happy Mother’s Day! Watch this short video as we recognize our moms today.
VIDEO
This morning as we get ready to worship together, would you prepare your heart to encounter the Lord. Right where you are let’s remove any distractions and let’s get ready to worship Him. Worship with me today!
Worship
Worship
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Sermon
Sermon
I am so glad you have joined us on this Mother of All Mother’s Days. Quarantine is such a strange time for celebrations. This past week I performed two weddings, and this week is my wedding anniversary. I had a birthday during the ‘Stay at Home’ orders and our family even adopted during this time via FaceTime. I have seen so many posts from you guys as well as other friends and family members who have shared their modified celebrations. I love that the celebration goes on despite our current circumstances. Today, is one to tell the special ladies in your life how grateful you are for them. Hopefully there are found memories to reflect upon today and to express gratitude for the difference special women have made in your life. I had a wonderful mom, have a amazing wife and mother to our four children, but I also was impacted by teachers, coaches, youth leaders . . . and the list goes on . . . of those who had a positive influence on me. We celebrate you today!
In case you missed the announcement this past week, we will continue to meet online for the month of May. I hope to be pleasantly surprised how well everything goes with re-opening businesses and our communities. At this time, our plans are to have our first in-person service on Sunday, June 7th. It will be a Family Service, with no to low contact encouraged. We will not be serving any food or having any classes for the kids, that is both Pre-Quest as well as Kid’s Quest. We plan to resume Thursday gatherings for our teens in High Quest, and Christian will communicate with each family that schedule and those plans as we get closer to June. Officials encourage wearing masks, and those in the most vulnerable populations (that is those over 65 or anyone with immune compromised or respiratory issues) to stay at home. And please, if you or anyone in your family is sick, has had a fever in the past 24 hours, or is experiencing any of the symptoms that are a concern during this pandemic please be considerate by staying home during your recovery.
Let’s shift gears and get into God’s Word today. I am stepping out of our series, Victim or Victor, to discuss something I see done well by the women who impart life to us, whether physically giving birth to us or imparting life by their influence and impact upon our lives. What I want to share with us this morning will be applicable for all of us, but we could easily relate it to the celebration of Mother’s Day.
Turn with me, if you will, to the Book of Judges. We will begin in chapter 6. But before we read our text this morning, and while you are turning there, I want to give a little historical background on the context. Israel has had leadership issues for generations at this point. Moses delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt but then had issues leading a faithless, disobedient people through the desert to the land God was going to give them. Joshua was Moses’ apprentice, who rose up as leader after Moses died. He would lead the people into the land promised, and the miracles of that period can be read in the Book of Joshua. Upon Joshua’s death, however, there wasn’t just one leader that would lead for a long period of time as before. Instead, we enter a period for the Israelites where after disobedience and enslavement the people would cry out for help. God would answer their cry by raising a judge, thus the Book of Judges gives us the stories of these 12 different judges. They would lead the people back through a process of repentance and restoration, until the next cycle of disobedience and apathy that would lead to another round of oppression.
The law of sowing and reaping has been embedded into the laws of our universe since the beginning. Adam and Eve weren’t able to disobey God without consequence to follow. Paul says it this way in writing to the Galatians:
7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.
8 Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
The principles for this law are founded in this phrase: God cannot be mocked. This stands true across all time and space, and history reflects through it’s stories how God will not allow even self-deceit. A man may think that he can earn a good return with little effort, but these are not the laws instilled in the economy of exchange. We will reap based upon what we have sown.
For Israel as well as us for us, if we sow to our fleshly desires we will reap a fleshly harvest with all its heartaches and troubles. BUT, if we sow to the spiritual things in our life, to a life to please the Spirit of God, the results will be a harvest of eternal life. This is the life that Christ came to bring us. A life that is full and not empty, a restoration of original design, restoring right relationship between man and God, and giving us the ability to live to our potential and purpose in God.
We have a choice much like the Israelites of what we will reap, and it will be based on what we choose today to sow. We sow with our words, our time, our money, our thoughts. And when we sow these things to fleshly desires we will end up in a similar oppression as the Israelites.
For Israel, this period of time is considered Israel’s Dark Ages. Some of these Judges you will remember well: Deborah, Samson, and today I want to talk about one of these judges in detail. Let’s take a look at Gideon.
Judges 6 starts out a lot like the other chapters that begin an explanation of their situation.
1 The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years.
We aren’t told the specifics of what evil Israel had committed. Based on later verses, though, we can assume that they were worshipping false God. The prophetic message in verses 8-10 expound upon God being their one true God and for Israel to not worship the gods of the Amorites. But they didn’t listen. And as we see later in the story, Gideon destroys the altars made to Baal and Asherah of which the Israelites had engaged in worship.
Israel’s sin prompts discipline from Yahweh, which creates the fundamental tension in the plot that will be resolved. This discipline is informed by the covenantal curses found in the Torah, which are built upon that ageless principle of sowing and reaping.
12 because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.
Solomon explains how wisdom is gained, and discipline is a vital part of that process. We learn that discipline is done out of a place of love, care, and concern. Punishment is quite the opposite. Punishment has more to do with behavior modification for a sense of order and control, while discipline has more to do with the one being disciplined and less to do with the one administering it. Discipline is not reactive, but instead takes the time to use the moment as a means to teach. The root of discipline being disciple, to teach or to train.
This is something that my mom and dad did well, and I see how we are using moment of consequences to be teachable moments with our kids. The WHY is so critical because it isn’t about behavior modification as it is heart transformation. That is what the Lord is after with us.
STORY:
This weekend I was reading a book by Brene Brown titled DARE TO LEAD. It has been so timely for me. It talks about what vulnerability is for a leader, and how to develop and create space for trust to form within your teams. As I saw there reflecting on some of the things I was reading, the Lord and I began to dialogue. He took me back to something He has been speaking to me about throughout this entire quarantine. You see, I tend to be one that finds too much of my identity in my performance, what I can accomplish and get done. I like to feel efficient and that brings me sense of value and purpose that honestly can get out of wack with what is healthy.
But as I sat there and reflected in conversation with the Lord, I heard Him tell me this: It is not about perfection but process. I tend to be one that wants to always be improving, working towards a better version of everything in every way. The problem is that I begin to set standards for myself and relate to performance in a way that the Lord never intended. He reminded me that He isn’t looking for perfection as much as me simply being in the process with Him. He isn’t looking for me to always get it right, but instead He gives me this space to learn and grow from the journey (mess ups, screw ups, bumps and bruises along the way). For someone like myself, that brings me such freedom. It motivates me toward healthier relationship with God which in turn effects the relationship I have. It effects the way I relate to my wife and kids. It effects the way I relate to my staff at KICKO and those here at church.
Even discipline, the Scripture says, is a tool in the belt of love.
Let me read a longer passage about this same Scripture from the author of Hebrews, reading from the 12th chapter.
5 And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
6 because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”
7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?
8 If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.
9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live!
10 They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness.
11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
There are moments that we experience discipline for things we have done where the laws sowing and reaping are in full effect. There are also circumstances we find ourselves in that are simply hardships that we suffer going through, not necessarily because of anything we have done, but God’s Word tells us that He will use both of these as redemptive acts in our life. This is really difficult to understand when not in relationship with the Lord. This is why I don’t expect those far from the Lord to understand that He causes it to rain on both the just and the unjust. I don’t expect those not walking close to Christ to have peace and hope during times of uncertainty and hardships and loss. This is what relationship with our Father in Heaven brings about within us. And as we walk with Him, get closer to Him, we see His affirmation for us as His children through everything we go through, the celebrations as well as the difficulties.
And so Israel, like often can, finds themselves at a crossroads of how they will respond to the Lord’s discipline. They are being punished because of their disobedience. The laws of sowing and reaping are in full effect for Israel right here.
And the Lord finds Gideon during this time, and calls him to be the leader that Israel needs in this hour.
11 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.
12 When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”
How many of you know people that see something in you that you just don’t see? I think moms are like this, but we also have leaders and friends that see things in us that we can sometimes be blind to.
The angel of the Lord, and a strong reference often in Scripture to an appearance of the pre-incarnate Christ, finds Gideon threshing wheat in a winepress. Gideon is busy threshing his wheat—a task that usually involved running heavy implements over the harvested stalks, throwing the material into the air on exposed heights to take advantage of passing winds to blow away the chaff, and sifting the grain. In order to remain safely hidden from the Midianites, Gideon is forced to perform this task in a less-than-ideal fashion within a winepress, a depressed (and therefore less detectable, but also windless) area where grapes were trodden by foot. He is attempting to keep what crops haven’t been ruined by the Midianites safe from destruction. He is using ingenuity, being creative but also careful.
The angel then turn to Gideon in the midst of dealing with destruction and insecurity to say, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” Someone needs to hear the voice of the Lord say this time them right now. You may not feel like it is true; you may feel quite the opposite, but He is saying to us, “I am with you, mighty warrior.” I’m with you and you are going to be alright. You are not only just get through this, you are going to rise to the challenge before you as a mighty warrior. How many of you, like me, need to hear this right now from God? I know I do.
The angel’s words seem out of line with the timid actions of Gideon, and Gideon himself challenged their validity. Actually, the promise of the Lord’s presence was intended to encourage Gideon, just as the same assurance led Moses to take the Israelites out of Egypt. “The LORD is with you” is in fact the basic meaning of the name Yahweh (YHWH), revealed to Moses at Mount Sinai (Exodus 3). And if God is with us, who can resist us?
Gideon was called a “mighty warrior,” perhaps in anticipation of his remarkable bravery.
And what others often see in us, even moms, that we can’t see for ourselves, the Lord wants to call out us right now. He wants to call out of us that leader inside, that innovatory and entrepreneur. He wants to call out of us, as we looked at last week, not out of our lack but out of our supply, from what He has deposited within us. You have inside of you what it takes to be a follower of Christ, a child of God that lives this life to the full potential that He has for you.
13 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
Gideon replies, “Excuse me. If God really is with us then why has all this happened?” Have you ever been at a place that caused you to ask similar questions? Has this global crisis led you to a response similar to Gideon’s? Gideon has not connected the sin and waywardness and disobedience with Israel’s current situation. He has not looked at the things happening with eyes looking through the aspects of reaping and sowing. These are laws in effect even now in our world.
In verse 14 we see the Lord’s response:
14 The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”
God doesn’t answer his questions; he doesn’t even seem to entertain the thoughts that are swirling for Gideon. Instead, the Lord shift Gideon’s gaze to what he does have, his supply. “Go in the strength you have…Am I not sending you?” The Lord reminds Gideon again that He is with him, the Great I Am. I am spending more time today on the process that led to Gideon finally stepping out to lead, to move towards the take over God desired for him. It is often at this moment that we can’t get past the first few steps towards what God has called us to do that we get stuck. We talk ourselves and God out of being able to do anything through us. I’ll never see that happen for me, let alone through me.
The story continues that Gideon asked to present a fleece before the Lord to see if what God was telling me was actually true. A fleece is not the jacket you wear to stay warm and cozy. This type of fleece was a challenge you present before God to see if what is being said is indeed true. Gideon couldn’t take God at His Word; He is asking Him to PROVE IT. God allows him to perform his fleece or challenge twice.
In Judges 7 the Lord takes the men Gideon has rallied down to a menial size.
2 The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me.’
3 Now announce to the army, ‘Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.’ ” So twenty-two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained.
The story continues as the Lord dwindles the size of Gideon’s army all the way down to 300 men. But Gideon still needed a little more encouragement to trust that the Lord would do what He said He would do. Isn’t it interesting that at the beginning of their dialogue, Gideon is asking, “Where are all the wonders that our ancestor told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’” But here Gideon is having difficulty believing that those wonders will even happen, especially through his hands or leadership.
9 During that night the Lord said to Gideon, “Get up, go down against the camp, because I am going to give it into your hands.
10 If you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah
11 and listen to what they are saying. Afterward, you will be encouraged to attack the camp.” So he and Purah his servant went down to the outposts of the camp.
Gideon heads down to hear this:
13 Gideon arrived just as a man was telling a friend his dream. “I had a dream,” he was saying. “A round loaf of barley bread came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It struck the tent with such force that the tent overturned and collapsed.”
14 His friend responded, “This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands.”
The rest is history. Quick side note: when Gideon gathered his army, he had 32,000 and they were outnumbered roughly 1 to 4. The Lord wanted to ensure that Gideon and all of Israel knew that this was indeed God delivering them from their enemies. He wanted all the credit, and no man could steal any glory from this miraculous defeat.
So, Gideon gathers the 300 men assembled, and they followed Gideon’s lead.
17 “Watch me,” he told them. “Follow my lead. When I get to the edge of the camp, do exactly as I do.
Notice how he is growing in his confidence in the Lord and his own abilities to be used by God. Did it take all of the fleeces and dreams and confirmations? Maybe!
22 When the three hundred trumpets sounded, the Lord caused the men throughout the camp to turn on each other with their swords. The army fled to Beth Shittah toward Zererah as far as the border of Abel Meholah near Tabbath.
But when you begin to step out into what and where God is leading you watch how the enemy is already filled with fear. The Lord has already spoken defeat over our enemy. He doesn’t win; He won’t win. Live form a place of victory, operating in the potential that God said was in you all along. Use what you have, seeing your supply not your lack. You are a mighty woman and man of God. Go in the strength that you have. Will God not be with you? Is He not sending you?
Victory is the Lord’s.
Let’s pray together.
PRAY
Father, I thank you for those joining us right now. Would you encourage their faith? Would you use the things that are going on in their life to bring them back to a place of complete dependence upon You? We don’t want to miss the opportunities before us right now during this global crisis to learn what you are teaching. We don’t want to get past these next few weeks wishing we had made more changes that You are in. Help us to lean into right now. Help us to see things the way You do. Help us to make ourselves available to use what You have given us. We bless our mamas today with an extra double portion blessing. We love you Lord and thank you for your love for us. Amen and amen!
Stay on and chat with us for a few minutes if you can. We’d love to hear from you!
