Theme Text: Habakkuk 3:19 Esther 3 & 4 Intro: Good morning and welcome to restoration life. We want to say Welcome Home. Welcome home because this is your House of worship. And if you re an honored guest with us this morning I pray you feel right at home surround by people who love GOD, Love people, and Love life! Last week we kicked off our Brave 2015 series and I was really looking forward to challenging all of us today. The question is are you ready to step up your faith and be Brave? My Anchor Being brave doesn't mean we have no fear - it means we refuse to be overcome by it. In fact, if I push past my fears I can face everything and rise above it as a conqueror. Quote: Until you discover your purpose, your existence will have no meaning, because purpose is the source of Fulfillment. Over the last 2 weeks we ve dived into the amazing story of an old testament Hero in Hiding by the name of Gideon. We ve learned that 1. We have trust issues 2. We have a false sense if Identity 3. God uses tough times to get our attention! Judges 6:1-10 4. God always sees more than we do (6:11-12). 5. You are who God says You are and next. I. God confirms His priorities with His presence (6:13-24). a. After being called a mighty warrior, Gideon questions God out loud, wondering why a bunch of bad things have happened to his people. 1
Verse 14 reveals that God turned to him, looked at Gideon and said, Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Median s hand. Am I not sending you? b. Gideon responds by saying that his resume isn t very impressive. 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. He comes from the weakest link in his clan, and he s the youngest in his family. He doesn t have any authority to call out the cavalry from his own tribe and family, let alone from the other tribes. Main Point is: God confirms His priorities with His presence. c. In verse 16, And the LORD said to him, Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man. 1 Gideon is given a commission but is also promised the companionship of the Lord Himself. Take Note Listen, God will never ask you to do something that he won t accompany you in. He is telling Gideon, I m going to be with you every step of the way! God will always make provision for the mission! d. Gideon then asks for the first of several signs just to be sure. He wants the Lord to wait for a few minutes while he runs off and bakes some bread and throws a goat on the grill. The meal is placed on a rock for the angel and then is vaporized by fire. When Gideon realizes that He is in the presence of the Almighty, he cries out in verse 22 Now Gideon perceived that He was the Angel of the LORD. So Gideon said, Alas, O Lord GOD! For I have seen the Angel of the LORD face to face. 2
23 Then the LORD said to him, Peace be with you; do not fear, you shall not die. 24 So Gideon built an altar there to the LORD, and called it The-LORD-Is-Peace. MY POINT: Gideon needed to understand who he was, but more importantly, He needed a personal encounter with God. Story: Napoleon s soldiers used to say, When Napoleon takes our hands and looks at us, we feel like conquerors. Life Apply: When the Lord turned and looked at Gideon, he must have had an overwhelming sense of the peace that can only come from being in the presence of God. Likewise, we need to take the hand of the Lord through faith in His leading and teaching. Once we do 1. We ll sense His presence, 2. We ll understand His priorities, 3. And in the process, we ll be fired up to do what He s calling us to do. II. Private faithfulness is a prerequisite to public usefulness (6:25-32). 1. Before Gideon can be used publicly, he must first take care of some things at home. He needs to clean up some bad stuff in his own backyard. The Lord gave him the assignment to take his dad s special seven-year-old bull and tear down his father s altar to Baal. Only a few bulls were necessary to sustain a herd, so only the best stock would be kept for breeding. To kill this bull would cause the family grave financial difficulties and put Gideon at personal risk. But it wasn t about the money it was about Gideon getting things right with God. Money was and is not more important than GOD! 3
Judges 6:25-27 (NKJV) 25 Now it came to pass the same night that the Lord said to him, Take your father s young bull, the second bull of seven years old, and tear down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the wooden image that is beside it; 26 and build an altar to the Lord your God on top of this rock in the proper arrangement, and take the second bull and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the image which you shall cut down. 27 So Gideon took ten men from among his servants and did as the Lord had said to him. But because he feared his father s household and the men of the city too much to do it by day, he did it by night. Gideon Destroys the Altar of Baal 28 And when the men of the city arose early in the morning, there was the altar of Baal, torn down; and the wooden image that was beside it was cut down, and the second bull was being offered on the altar which had been built. My Point: God s people had allowed their worship to become polluted and Gideon had to confront the breaking of the first and second commandments in his own family. Church if you want to learn how to trust God then you must first set the affairs of your own house in order. Before God can use you in a mighty way, He must be magnified in your home. The question is Is He? Is there anything you ve been holding on to? Is there any sin that you re clinging to? Let it go. Confess it. Deal with it. And knock down any altars you find. LISTEN I m going to get some of you mad at me this morning and I m ok with that. Just because others see their Idols and false worship as Holy doesn t mean you have to Respect it! Honor it! Keep my mouth Shut about it! Coexist with it! Learn to tolerate it1 4
OR PRETENT I DON T SEE IT! WHEN WE TEAR DOWN THESE ALTAR PEOPLE WILL COME AGAINST YOU! JUDGES 6 28-32 And when the men of the city arose early in the morning, there was the altar of Baal, torn down; and the wooden image that was beside it was cut down, and the second bull was being offered on the altar which had been built. 29 So they said to one another, Who has done this thing? And when they had inquired and asked, they said, Gideon the son of Joash has done this thing. 30 Then the men of the city said to Joash, Bring out your son, that he may die, because he has torn down the altar of Baal, and because he has cut down the wooden image that was beside it. 31 But Joash said to all who stood against him, Would you plead for Baal? Would you save him? Let the one who would plead for him be put to death by morning! If he is a god, let him plead for himself, because his altar has been torn down! 32 Therefore on that day he called him Jerubbaal,[b] saying, Let Baal plead against him, because he has torn down his altar. III. God is patient with our faith process (6:33-40). 1. Not long after he has this encounter with God and steps out in faith the enemy is right there to challenge His new direction in life. In verse 33, we read that the Midianites and a bunch of other ites are getting ready to make their annual raid Verse 34 tells us, Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, summoning the Abiezrites to follow him. 2. Gideon had taken a huge step of faith in his private faithfulness and now God s Spirit is empowering Him publicly. People and clans are rallying behind him and his faith is growing as he marvels at what God is doing when 32,000 men show up. Listen. Even though he has had an encounter with the Almighty, even though he was obedient to clean shop at home, and even though the Holy Spirit was empowering him, he still had some doubts. Sounds like us, doesn t it? 5
3. God had told him what to do but Gideon wanted to make sure. Look at verse 36: If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised I love how loving, tender, and patient God is with us. Gideon is making a deal with God. He knows that God has promised to save Israel through him and yet he wants to set up a test. 4. This test is what Gideon is most famous for. A. First, he places a wool fleece on the threshing floor [demonstrate] and says, If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said. Even here he s admitting once again that God had said He would do this. When he got up the next morning, that s exactly what happened. The fleece was full of moisture and the ground was dry. B. Apparently this wasn t good enough for Gideon. He knew that wool tended to absorb water so this was really no big deal. He doesn t want God to be angry with him in verse 39 when he says, Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece [he s being pretty polite here]. This time make the fleece dry and the ground covered with dew. This would be a miracle because if the ground was wet and the fleece was on the ground, then the wool would be wet as well. My Point: The next morning, the ground was soaked and the fleece was dry. God was gracious with Gideon s growing faith. IV. Success is determined by God s power, not ours (7:1-8). 1. Gideon s ready to throw down and fight but God has other plans. In Judges 7:2 God says to Gideon. You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands. In order that Israel may 6
not boast against me that her own strength has saved her. Gideon must have wondered what was going on. He already knew they were outnumbered but his guys were pumped. Maybe they could defeat the bad guys. God then does some sifting and tells anyone who is trembling with fear to go home. Amazingly, 22,000 men boogied and only 10,000 remained. I think the 22,000 were the honest ones because they were all probably scared! 2. As Gideon is getting ready to go into battle, God says in verse 4 that there are still too many men. He tells Gideon to take them down to the water and let them drink. 3. After sifting out the fearful and the foolish, God then tells Gideon that he will save Israel with 300 men. Seriously? These men were the most faithful and the most fit for battle. We know from chapter 8 that the enemy army had 135,000 human fighting machines. Gideon realizes that for every one Israelite, there were 450 Midianites. His army is less than 1% of its original size. Talk about being outnumbered! 4. BUT God loves to show Himself strong when we feel weak. He delights in the difficult, but He specializes in the impossible. In Luke 28:27 Jesus said, What is impossible with men is possible with God. Quote: Someone has said that we should attempt something so big for God that unless He is in it, it will fail. I m sure that s how Gideon felt. 7
My POINT: God will uses Your obedience in the little and by His Grace makes that plenty for Him to use. In Closing: Sometimes we get so caught up and look to only see the impossible standing before us. 2 Corinthians 12:9 says My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. V. God gives us assurance when we do things His way (7:9-25). 1. After whittling down the troops, God recognizes that Gideon may be a bit nervous and that he doesn t feel like a superhero at this point. a. God then has Gideon go down to where the Midianites are camped so that he can hear someone tell him about a dream that he had. When Gideon realizes that the dream was about the Midianites defeat at the hand of the Israelites, verse 15 tells us that he worshiped God. b. I love how God goes out of His way to give us assurance when we do things His way. We don t have to doubt or wonder. I can think of at least five things we can be totally certain about if we have put our faith in Jesus Christ: Assurance of salvation (1 John 5) Assurance of answered prayer (John 16:24) Assurance of victory (1 cor. 10:13) Assurance of forgiveness (1 John 1:9) Assurance of guidance (Proverbs 3:5-6) c. After Gideon receives assurance, he divides the three hundred men into three companies and gives each of them trumpets and clay pots with torches inside them. They don t even have slingshots! He gives them the battle plan, telling them to follow his lead. In the middle of the night, they snuck up and surrounded the camp, blew their trumpets and broke the jars so that the light would shine. 8
d. Normally, only a few of the soldiers carried trumpets for signaling because hands were needed for weapons and shields. Likewise, only a small number would be assigned torches to illuminate the battlefield during the night. Therefore, when the Midianites heard the blast of 300 trumpets and saw the myriad of torches, they naturally assumed there was a massive army that would be charging into the camp. They got spooked and started running around like crazy, killing one another. Many died and others got away, with Gideon in hot pursuit. VI. Finish strong even when you feel like giving up (8:4-21). 1. V4 Gideon and his three hundred men, exhausted, yet keeping up the pursuit a. Gideon was weary but he still had a job to do. He was wiped out but there were still Midianites to track down. The task wasn t complete. God is looking for finishers today, for those who will not only start strong but will finish strong. Those that finish well. VII. Be careful to give God the credit (8:22-23). 1. After defeating the Mighty Midianites, the Gideonater is basking in the glory of a victory parade and the high-fives of the people. a. In verse 22, the Israelites say to him, Rule over us you, your son and your grandson because you have saved us out of the hand of Midian. They re basically saying, You go, Gideon! You da man! Gideon knew it was all about God, not about him and so he directed their focus back to the Lord in verse 23: The Lord will rule over you. 9
There s a lot of good news about Gideon in these three chapters. We can learn to trust God by following his top ten lists: We have trust issues We have a false sense if Identity God uses tough times to get our attention! Judges 6:1-10 God always sees more than we do (6:11-12). You are who God says You are and next. God confirms His priorities with His presence Private faithfulness is a prerequisite to public usefulness God is patient with our faith process Success is determined by God s power, not ours God gives us assurance when we do things His way Finish strong even when you feel like giving up Be careful to give God the credit Gideon s Bad News While Gideon learned how to trust God, his story doesn t end on a very good note. Like Samson, who started out with so much potential, a fatal flaw tripped him up in the end. While he refused to be made king, he did ask for the gold earrings of the killed Midianites. His desire for gold tarnished the luster of his bright name. It was like kryptonite for our spiritual superhero. He then wanted this gold used to make an ephod, which was supposed to be just for the high priest. Gideon was hoping he could use this to get a special connection with God, without having to travel to Shiloh to worship. Unfortunately, this object became a stumbling block for the entire nation of Israel, much like the golden calf constructed by Aaron in Exodus Look at Judges 8:27 All Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his family. When Gideon eventually dies, the Israelites once again prostituted themselves to Baal. They were right back to where they started. Gideon s compromise led to their downfall. One of his sons took the role of king and killed 70 of his brothers in the process. This is really sad and serves as a warning to us. We can never coast spiritually. Don t ever think that you ve arrived, because you haven t! 10