RSVP
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Transcript
Last weeks recap
What did God give you last year?
What has God said that you are to bring about?
If you feel the suffering, look to the glory and great things God is bringing about through your life.
We walk through the story of Gideon to learn what God is up to today.
God brings us on scary journeys to obliterate our doubts about God and ourselves.
Last weeks challenge:
What did God give you in 2020?
What has God told you that you will do?
2 The power of Midian prevailed against Israel. Because of Midian the sons of Israel made for themselves the dens which were in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds.
Midian = strife or contention
When we are in a place of contention or hopelessness we hide in our caves for safety.
Those caves are still not safe.
Gideon was not hiding in a cave. He showed up to do something.
Gideon was in a place of despair doing what he could in his own strength.
An angel was watching and saw one man was doing something for Gods people.
After Gideon began to believe what the angle of the Lord was telling him, Gideon asked for a sign.
He gathered an offering to sacrifice and the angle put out his staff and lit the fire and then vanished.
Two times Gideon asked for a sign or confirmation.
It if fine for you to ask God for a sign to confirm His call for you.
You can ask for doors to be open or closed.
After this Gideon was instructed to go tear down the alter to baal that his father constructed.
He took ten men with him at night and tore down that alter to baal and built an alter to God.
Baal is anything we go to other than God to fill in what we are missing.
If you feel powerless and you go to something other than God to feel powerful.
If you dont like the feelings you have in general so you go to something other than God to numb your pain.
We go to our job to feel more important.
We go to what we own to feel more.
We go to knowledge about topics to feel better about ourselves.
We go to being right to feel better about ourselves.
We go to body image
We go to comparing ourselves
We even go to a relationship to a person as our source of life.
We go to addictions to not feel, tv, phones, games, drinking, drugs, working out, working harder,
We go to a mental home of depression, anxiety, fear, doubt, unbelief...
Do you have a baal in your family line that needs torn down and replaced with going to God first.
God wants us to find our strength and fill our gaps with Him first.
14 “For many are called, but few are chosen.”
Why are few chosen?
This phrase comes right at the end of the parables of the wedding feast.
People who were invited did not come to the wedding.
Others came and did not dressed for the occasion.
How do you become the few?
- Simply show up and adhere to what He says you are.
Like Gideon who showed up and changed his view of himself based on what God was saying he is.
Closing:
God is calling all of us to RSVP to be part of brining a greater heaven to earth.
We first just need to show up to Him.
We then receive all of what He is saying about us.
We boldly tear down the idols in our family lines.
We can ask God for signs to build our faith along the way.
This weeks Challenge:
Where do you need to RSVP to God’s call?
What has God told you about you for this call?
Do you have a baal in your family line to tear down?
Ask God for a sign to help.
Other Resources:
1 I waited patiently for the Lord; And He inclined to me and heard my cry. 2 He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. 3 He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; Many will see and fear And will trust in the Lord.
6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, 7 casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. 8 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. 10 After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.
10 ‘Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’ 11 “Behold, all those who are angered at you will be shamed and dishonored; Those who contend with you will be as nothing and will perish. 12 “You will seek those who quarrel with you, but will not find them, Those who war with you will be as nothing and non-existent. 13 “For I am the Lord your God, who upholds your right hand, Who says to you, ‘Do not fear, I will help you.’
5 Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. 6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
11 Then the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order to save it from the Midianites. 12 The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior.” 13 Then 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 abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.” 14 The Lord looked at him and said, “Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?” 15 He said to Him, “O Lord, how shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s house.” 16 But the Lord said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man.” 17 So Gideon said to Him, “If now I have found favor in Your sight, then show me a sign that it is You who speak with me. 18 “Please do not depart from here, until I come back to You, and bring out my offering and lay it before You.” And He said, “I will remain until you return.” 19 Then Gideon went in and prepared a young goat and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour; he put the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot, and brought them out to him under the oak and presented them. 20 The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And he did so. 21 Then the angel of the Lord put out the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. Then the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. 22 When Gideon saw that he was the angel of the Lord, he said, “Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.” 23 The Lord said to him, “Peace to you, do not fear; you shall not die.” 24 Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and named it The Lord is Peace. To this day it is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites. 25 Now on the same night the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s bull and a second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal which belongs to your father, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it; 26 and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of this stronghold in an orderly manner, and take a second bull and offer a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah which you shall cut down.” 27 Then Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had spoken to him; and because he was too afraid of his father’s household and the men of the city to do it by day, he did it by night.
1 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying, 2 “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. 3 “And he sent out his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding feast, and they were unwilling to come. 4 “Again he sent out other slaves saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited, “Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fattened livestock are all butchered and everything is ready; come to the wedding feast.” ’ 5 “But they paid no attention and went their way, one to his own farm, another to his business, 6 and the rest seized his slaves and mistreated them and killed them. 7 “But the king was enraged, and he sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire. 8 “Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. 9 ‘Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast.’ 10 “Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered together all they found, both evil and good; and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests. 11 “But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw a man there who was not dressed in wedding clothes, 12 and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?’ And the man was speechless. 13 “Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14 “For many are called, but few are chosen.”
