Foundational faith #6

Northside Church

Aug 28, 2022

Foundational faith #6

Jamey Mills

Good morning NS… so good to be with you all. My name is Jamey Mills and I am the lead pastor here at Northside…

This is absolutely nuts… here we are, the last Sunday in August… it literally feels like summer just started… let's hear it for single digit days until school starts?

It’s our 6th and final sermon in this series we are calling foundational faith… where we’ve used Heb 11 as a bit of a guide…

It opens up by defining faith… in two ways…

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for…

It's not wishful thinking or even reckless optimism… but it's grounded in deep belief and trust that what God says… even if it’s yet to be realized… will come to be.

Conviction of things we can’t see.

This life altering conviction that impacts the way we think and live our lives… it leads to action.

This deep trust that God will do what He says in a way that impacts the way we think and live…

In a way, Faith is an educated response to the reality of God and goodness of God.

Heb goes on to illustrate what life changing faith looks like lived out in the lives of real, everyday, ordinary messy people like you and I.

We’ve talked about Moses, Joseph, Rahab, Jacob…

Hebrews 11:32 NLT

How much more do I need to say? It would take too long to recount the stories of the faith of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and all the prophets.

(NLT)

32 How much more do I need to say? It would take too long to recount the stories of the faith of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and all the prophets.

It feels like the author is saying… I’ve made my point but I could go on all day.

I haven't even mentioned the powerful stories of guys like Gideon, Barak, Samson, King David, Samuel or the prophets…

Some of the people… I’d say most if not all of the people mentioned here were crazy messy… and every single one of them seemed to have several steps… and maybe one defining moment where faith seemed to change the direction of their life or… even the life of a nation.

And I think his point is this…

Real faith being lived out sincerely but imperfectly before God is a powerful thing.

But today I want to talk about Gideon…

Gideon is one of the guys I feel like I have more in common with than just about anyone in scripture…

The history of Gideon is found all the way back in the book of Judges…

It’s right after the book of Joshua… it was at the end of his life and leadership that he laid it on the line for Israel…

They’d seen God do amazing and mind blowing things… Joshua reminded them how faithful God had been… and told them to fear God… to seek and serve Him alone.

Then he reminded them and us of a decision that in some ways stands before us everyday of our life…

1. You can repeat the mistakes of your ancestors… you can live in the past

2. You can get swept away by the current the culture you are in

3. As for me and my house… we will seek and serve the Lord.

So much resolution. Joshua is saying that from here forward, it is what they life would be about.

God’s people were inspired by Joshua’s resolve. Saying in view of God’s amazing faithfulness… they are making that choice too…

It must have been an incredibly powerful day.

It sounds like Israel experienced a short season… about 40 years… of peace.

And as we get into the book of Judges we begin to see this pattern… and it's not new…

Where Israel gets comfortable… and apathetic… Their commitment and resolution to God wavers, they get comfortable… lose sight of their need to seek, obey, trust and rest in Him…

They allowed the culture around them to carry them off… it was exactly what Joshua warned them about.

It's amazing how prosperity causes people… throughout history… to lose their focus on what really matters. It is a frequent warning in scripture…

And I think one of the things we learn is…

Faith grounds us in every season of life

… It plays a role, it anchors us when things are great and when things are hard. When we have enough and when we are struggling to get by. When people are for us or when people are against us… Faith plays a role in every stage and season of our life.

But sometimes… Israel wasn’t interested in it.

Is that true of us too?

This is what it sounded like…

Judges 6:1–4 NLT

The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight. So the Lord handed them over to the Midianites for seven years. The Midianites were so cruel that the Israelites made hiding places for themselves in the mountains, caves, and strongholds. Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, marauders from Midian, Amalek, and the people of the east would attack Israel, camping in the land and destroying crops as far away as Gaza. They left the Israelites with nothing to eat, taking all the sheep, goats, cattle, and donkeys.

(NLT)

The Israelites did evil in the LORD’s sight. So the LORD handed them over to the Midianites for seven years. 2 The Midianites were so cruel that the Israelites made hiding places for themselves in the mountains, caves, and strongholds. 3 Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, marauders from Midian, Amalek, and the people of the east would attack Israel, 4 camping in the land and destroying crops as far away as Gaza. They left the Israelites with nothing to eat, taking all the sheep, goats, cattle, and donkeys.

They’d gotten too big in their own eyes… they lost sight of their need for God… to submit and surrender to Him… for His leadership in their lives.

It was bad. Whenever Israel would plant crops or raise livestock it says that these marauders would come in hordes, as thick as locusts… uncountable… and stripped the land bare.

God’s people… were reduced to hiding in the hills and in holes… running for their life… starving…

After 7 years of it… it says they’d had enough… they were brought low and became so desperate that they cried out to God.

Not our favorite thing…

Faith grows in the face of hardship

, even when it comes at our own doing. Complacency, sin, rebellion, self-reliance, disobedience…

This pattern of rebelling against God… facing the consequences… being brought low… crying out to God… and then moving toward Him… Over and over…

At some point… you’d think they would have learned… but I guess you could say that about my life too.

It got me thinking that

One of the best things we can do when it comes to growing our faith is learning from our own mistakes

. God doesn't waste any of it. He uses those things to teach us, to help us fix our eyes on him, to grow our faith, to walk with other people…

How different would Israel have been if they at some point would have set their minds on God and learned… and if we really want to get crazy with it, you can dig into the bible and learn from their mistakes too.

We’ve talked alot about how one of the primary ways that faith is formed is experiencinging and acknowledging and celebrating the faithfulness of God in your life… and that is the testimony of His people. Every time they fell, God was more than patient… more than gracious… giving them crazy opportunities to turn back to Him… and the issue was often not the mistake… but their refusal to turn back to Him that led to such rough places.

And that is where His people were at this time.

They cried to God and it says that an angel found Gideon threshing wheat in the bottom of a wine press… Hiding from the Midians and this is what he said…

Judges 6:12–16 NLT

The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “Mighty hero, the Lord is with you!” “Sir,” Gideon replied, “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn’t they say, ‘The Lord brought us up out of Egypt’? But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites.” Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!” “But Lord,” Gideon replied, “how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family!” The Lord said to him, “I will be with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.”

(NLT)

12 The angel of the LORD appeared to him and said, “Mighty hero, the LORD is with you!” 13 “Sir,” Gideon replied, “if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn’t they say, ‘The LORD brought us up out of Egypt’? But now the LORD has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites.” 14 Then the LORD turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!”

15 “But Lord,” Gideon replied, “how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family!”

16 The LORD said to him, “I will be with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.”

Mighty hero… God is with you… Normally that would be good stuff, but Gideon had no room for that.

Instead he had all kinds of hard questions… and even frustration…

If God is with us… explain this… why is this happening… Where is God in this… why has he abandoned us… where are all the amazing things I’d heard about.

Don’t tell me God is with me… and don’t tell me I am able.

And I think that is a lesson in the faithfulness of God.

It sounds like Gideon is blaming God… for all of their stuff and the hardship it brought…

This happens in our culture too… we live like hell, and then get mad at God when it doesn’t go well… or even sometimes… we obey God… and do good… and get mad at God when it doesn't always go the way that we think it should… Instead of seeing God’s leadership, we chase our own comfort, way, or kingdom…

Faith keeps God at the center

… It’s a dangerous game when we allow what we think and what we want to play the leading role in our theology… when we try to force God to fit out thinking on what He should be like.

In fact, in Jan, we have an entire sermon series aimed at that very thing…

I also love the fact that God seems completely unfazed by Gideons honest question and frustration. I don’t think Gidieon is willfully going after God… I think he is genuinely lost, hurt, confused… and a little angry.

And God seemed to be unfazed by it.

Faith is transparent before the Lord in view of His leadership.

I love that God told him to go with the strength that he had… to me it was a reminder that he didn't need to invent or act… God didn't call him to be or bring anything that God himself did not already provide…

Faith and what God does through faith does not depend on what you bring to the table

… it isn't dependant on my own strength and ability

And there is a powerful lesson in that… The bible is full of reminders about how our inadequacy… is a conduit for God’s power, majesty, and strength to come through in clearer ways… why… because it's not caught up on ME…

When the apostle Paul was feeling small and weak this is what Jesus said to Him… (2 Cor 12:9)

Dude, it's not about you. My grace is sufficient for you… My power works best in your weakness… celebrate your weaknesses and know that God is at work within them.

Faith is more about the object of our faith than our own ability.

Gideon was struggling… so he asked for a sign.

God made fire come out of a rock… and it says that Gideon was fearful… because he’d seen an angel of the Lord and built a monument, a memorial or an altar… right there to God.

God told him first things first… you’ve got to go home and deal with these idols…

And I think this is a message for our generation as much as any other…

Real faith involves dealing with the idols in our lives…

We have to take care of those things that have taken our time, attention, devotion, trust… that have caused you to take your eyes off of who God is and who we are in Him.

And so Gideon did… he knew it would be rough so he did it at night and replaced them with an altar to God… and in the morning the men woke up and were furious…

They heard that it was Gideon so they showed up at his dad's house, ready to kill him… and Joash said this…

And Joash’s response was basically over my dead body… he said if these idols had any power… if Baal was worthy of trust and faith… then let him defend himself…

And evidently that sounded reasonable to them… so they left.

But they changed Gideons name to Jarub-baal which means… let baal defend himself.

It says that Gideon sent word far and wide for the warriors to assemble…

And they did… 32K of them responded.

Gideon was still struggling and asked for yet another sign…

This is what it sounded like…

Judges 6:36–37 NLT

Then Gideon said to God, “If you are truly going to use me to rescue Israel as you promised, prove it to me in this way. I will put a wool fleece on the threshing floor tonight. If the fleece is wet with dew in the morning but the ground is dry, then I will know that you are going to help me rescue Israel as you promised.”

(NLT)

36 Then Gideon said to God, “If you are truly going to use me to rescue Israel as you promised, 37 prove it to me in this way. I will put a wool fleece on the threshing floor tonight. If the fleece is wet with dew in the morning but the ground is dry, then I will know that you are going to help me rescue Israel as you promised.”

And it happened just like that…

But that wasn’t enough, so Gideon said let's do it the exact opposite way… if the fleece is dry but everything else is wet, then I’ll know...

How patient is God… it would be easy to say the whole fire rock thing would have been enough… but in the eyes of rational men… this was a sucicide mission.

7 years of being beaten down, oppressed and starved by armies too numerous to count.

God continued to respond to the questions and fears of Gideon…

And it must have been concerning when God said 32k was too many… to go up against an enemy of roughly 135k.

God told him to dismiss any that were afraid so right there, 22k went home.

That was still to many

So God told G to take them to get water… and to separate those who cupped the water with their hands vs those who knelt all the way down to drink straight from the spring… one author said… those who cupped the water were likely older and out of shape… but it was with those 300… that God said He’d use to deliver Israel… just like with our weakness… so that they’d know it was God at work through them.

It says that very night… God told Gideon He had given Midian to him… but that if he was still afraid… to take his servant and to quietly go near the camp of the midians and simply listen…. As he got there he saw an army two vast to count… and this is what he heard…

Judges 7:13–14 NLT

Gideon crept up just as a man was telling his companion about a dream. The man said, “I had this dream, and in my dream a loaf of barley bread came tumbling down into the Midianite camp. It hit a tent, turned it over, and knocked it flat!” His companion answered, “Your dream can mean only one thing—God has given Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite, victory over Midian and all its allies!”

(NLT)

13 Gideon crept up just as a man was telling his companion about a dream. The man said, “I had this dream, and in my dream a loaf of barley bread came tumbling down into the Midianite camp. It hit a tent, turned it over, and knocked it flat!”

14 His companion answered, “Your dream can mean only one thing—God has given Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite, victory over Midian and all its allies!”

Right there… it says that Gideon believed it… and there, right next to the enemy he bowed his head and worshiped God.

With every single one of these people we’ve been looking at… there were several small steps God had led them to take in developing their faith, but there was also this monumental moment… and I think this was it.

He went back… woke the 300 up…

Told them that the time was now… he gave them each a clay jar and a rams horn… and told them to follow his lead.

The median camp was in a bit of a valley and so they surrounded it, when all of the sudden they blew 300 horns, smashed 300 hundred jars, and 300 voices yelled for the Lord and for Gideon…

And they watched as this cast army panicked, and began fighting with themselves… and eventually ran for their lives.

That is the very condensed version of the history of Gideon.

Not long after they wanted to make him and his sons kind… but he refused… reminding God alone would lead them.

And not too long after that, Gideon led God’s people back into idolatry… all over again.

It’s another reminder that faith is for every season… there is no season… where we stop leaning in… stop looking to Him for leadership… stop trusting His strength in the face of our weakness…

Complacency… and success is often the enemy of our growing faith.

And for me… the major take away was this…

At the very end of Heb. 11 is says this… that there was one thing these 22+ heroes of the faith had in common…

Hebrews 11:39 NLT

All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised.

(NLT)

39 All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised.

None of them… received all that God had promised in their day. What?

Faith… is not about what I get… Faith, real faith… authentic faith is centered on Christ and is about His Kingdom… about His priorities…

And that is why Jesus himself said… that if anyone really wants to follow Him… they must do what? Deny themself… take up their cross… and follow Him.

What if… faith was less what we got out of it and more about the process of what God is developing in you, within His church and in the world around us.

If you never step forward in faith, you will likely remain right where you’re at.

Stepping forward in faith… will always stretch you.

Stepping forward in faith will grow you…

Faith is not about you… or how big you are… how much your worth… or strong you think you are… in fact… faith is in a sense coming to the point where you realize it isn't about you…

Do you know this well… that faith is about the one who created you, who created it all, who knows you by name… and who can take faith the size of a mustard seed and deliver nations… move mountains… bring salvation…

Faith… even small faith… even faith thats laid over hard questions and doubt… that’s backed by obedience… accomplishes are more than you can even imagine… Hebrews 11 is full of people who set that example…

Faith… is developed. Its a journey and not just a destination…

And God is patient… He is willing but are you?

In the highs and lows…

In the questions…

In the wins and loses

In the discipline…

All of it is aimed at helping us draw nearer… and see clearer… the reality of God and His goodness.

Faith is for every season…

Faith, even small faith is powerful in the hands of God

Faith knows that His power is clearly seen in our weakness.

And Faith is something that God develops in us… as we go.