Gideon

- Good morning church.

It's good to be in the house with you today.

It's always good to be in the house of the Lord.

God is good.

All the time.

Well, I'm glad we said that together.

Couple of things before we get started.

If you are joining us right after this gathering

for the newcomer lunch,

it will be right through those doors

into the fellowship hall.

We will break bread together

and then we'll spend a few moments getting to know you

and telling you about Springhouse.

If this is your first day with us

and you'd like to know about a church, come on.

Well, I'd love to meet you

and this would be a good day for you to meet the staff

and the leadership here at the church.

And then second, I'm not gonna go much into this today.

This is gonna come down the line,

but I felt like I was supposed to say this today.

A group of us have started to go to Celebrate Recovery

at North Boulevard Church of Christ in Murfreesboro.

And if you're familiar with Celebrate Recovery,

I encourage you to look it up online at some point

because I'm gonna be talking about it in the future.

But on Monday nights, I've been going every week.

There's a group of about 10 to 12 of us going.

If you are interested in participating in that,

we'd love to get you connected with us to be a part of that.

So if that's of interest to you,

come and see me and I'll get you that information.

All right, so we are continuing our series,

The Greatest Stories Ever Told,

and they truly are the greatest stories ever told

because they're in God's word and they're true.

True, yes?

Greatest stories ever told.

And today we're probably going to talk about

one of my most favorite characters in scripture.

And I'll tell you why that is in just a few moments,

but would you stand with me this morning?

We're gonna read from the book of Judges.

We are not gonna read three chapters together today,

but we are gonna talk about a man named Gideon,

and I've got two short scriptures for us to read.

But would you all read them like you had three shots

of espresso before you came today?

Here we go.

When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon,

he said, "The Lord is with you, mighty warrior."

Without faith, it is impossible to please God

because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists

and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Father, thank you for your word.

I thank you that it is true and alive

and working in our lives today.

Lord, I'm asking, Lord, that my stuff that comes from me

would fall down and be forgotten,

but the things, Lord, that you have for us

would stick for all eternity, God.

And I also ask that you would increase the faith

in this house in Jesus' name, amen, amen.

All right, you may be seated.

The greatest stories ever told,

we're gonna talk about Gideon today.

I used to be in high school, and, true story.

And when I was in high school, I rode the bus to school,

and it was during a season where my parents were gone

before the bus came to the house.

So it was very important for me to catch the bus

'cause if I didn't catch the bus,

I wouldn't make it to school unless I was gonna walk.

And so I was real intent on catching the bus.

And the bus driver at the time was a lady

by the name of Rena Montgomery,

and she was just a phenomenal, phenomenal, just everything,

especially a fellow sister in Christ,

or a sister in Christ or other.

And as a bus driver, because she kinda knew me

and we had developed a relationship,

she would slow that bus down right by my house

knowing Kevin's gonna come out any moment.

And sure enough, I would come out

and she would stop and let me in.

Nowadays, I see buses, and if they don't see kids,

they just fly by, you know?

It's just like, you better jump on

when the door's open while it's still rolling.

But when I was 16, I got my license and I got a car.

And when I rode the bus,

I was at school all the time on time,

but something happened whenever I got a car.

Something happened, just a few extra moments of sleep,

and I started to be late to school

with my newfound freedom of driving my car.

Well, they had this thing in the county,

at least whenever I was in high school,

that when you miss nine days of a particular class

in a semester, you fail the class

and you don't get the credit, you don't graduate.

And so, unfortunately, I had accrued enough absences

in this first period class of mine where I was up to eight,

and I needed to fix this problem.

And so I went into Miss McCullough,

the guidance counselor at the time,

and I sat down and I said, "Miss McCullough,

"I've got a problem and I need you to fix it."

And she said, "Okay, well, what's your problem?"

I said, "I'm about to lose the credit

"in this first period class

"for all these absences that I have.

"I need you to switch this class to a different period

"and give me a fresh period during first period

"to which I can be late to."

(congregation laughing)

And she looked at me like I had 12 eyes,

and she said to me,

"Why don't you just show up on time to school?"

And when she said that to me, it was as if the,

it was an epiphany.

I never ever thought that that was even a possibility

that I would show up on time to school.

You know, the reason I share that story

is that sometimes whenever we look at problems

and situations, we're trying to attack the symptom

instead of the root issue.

Sometimes we're trying to attack the symptom

instead of the root issue.

Today, we're gonna talk about Gideon.

And when we talk about Gideon,

when I talk to my friends about the story of Gideon,

or we talk, we usually look at Gideon's life

and we talk about Gideon and his faith,

or lack of faith, his questions, all of these things,

and that's appropriate because that's a part of the story.

But I think it's a very important thing for us to realize

why this story exists in Scripture to begin with.

Israel was in a season of their lives

where they were turning their hearts away from Jehovah God.

They were turning their hearts away from the one true God,

the star breather, and not only that,

they had decided to begin worshiping idol gods.

That's important because I want us to understand

that the entire reason that God arrives on the scene here

is because Israel became so plundered, so impoverished,

so destitute because of the Midianites,

because of the others in the land,

they became in such a bad, devastated position

that they finally called out to the one true God

and God is going to come and rescue them.

But I want you to understand that it wasn't God's prerogative

to take out the enemy, it was God's prerogative

to put himself back in the proper place

in the hearts of the Israelites.

And I want us to understand that today you may have come

with some symptomatic problems,

but God is wanting to get to the root issue.

He's wanting to pull out the root issue

because the symptoms are only there because of the root.

I remember the other day I was at the school

and there's these bushes that we have

and there's this ugly little thing growing out of this bush,

this weed and I get out there

and I am tugging on this thing.

I mean, it was huge, I'm just pulling so hard because why?

I don't wanna just rip part of the weed out,

I wanna get the root out of there so it dies.

And I'm telling you today, we sang earlier

about some dead things coming to life,

there are some things that have life that need to be dead.

And God can do that today

if he's in the right place of your heart,

if he's in the right place of your life.

So the real issue here is that the Israelites have decided

that there is a better God than the God of the universe

and they are worshiping him.

Can I tell you, we've said this before,

you cannot defeat your demons

if you're still enjoying their company.

You cannot contend and think that your demons

are going to die and flee if you continue to resuscitate them

every time you get an itch,

that you want to hang out with them.

Death means death.

And some of the things, the problems in our life,

God wants to pull out completely.

For some of you today, your issue is not your bank account,

it's not your relationships, it's not your job,

it's that you've chosen to place someone or something

above the God of the universe

and you're asking him to share the throne

and he won't do it, he won't do it.

I love the story of Gideon.

And the reason I love the story of Gideon

is because I believe that it is one of the places

in scripture where we see a character who is most like us.

I see a character, for a believing Christian,

I see a character in Gideon and his responses

and his dialogue with God that I think lines way up

with you and I as believers in Christ.

You know, I would like to say every single time

I hear the voice of the Lord, I say, yes sir,

and I do exactly what he tells me to do.

But if I'm honest with you, that's not the case.

In fact, there are multiple times

when God tells me to do something

and I ignore him like he's not even speaking to me, okay?

So I mean, let alone always getting it

and nailing it on the head when God says go and do this.

And a lot of times the reason why I hesitate

to do what God has asked me to do

is because I'm fearful of what might happen

or I'm fearful that I don't have the strength

to accomplish it.

But therein lies the problem.

He never asked us to do something

that he's relying on our own,

asking us to rely on our own strength to do.

So Midian has totally devastated Israel so much

that we find Gideon in a place where he is threshing wheat

in a wine press.

Well, what does that mean?

Has anybody been threshing wheat this week?

Anybody in a wine press this week?

So I'm gonna give you an analogy.

Threshing the wheat in a wine press

is equivalent to me changing my oil

in the middle of this ministry center.

Doesn't belong, okay?

It doesn't belong.

Threshing wheat means getting the good parts of the wheat

that you can eat and he's in this wine press

because Gideon is afraid.

He is scared for his life, but he has to sustain himself.

Have you ever been in a place where you were scared,

where you were afraid of what might happen?

Listen, just because you're scared, listen,

if I'm scared that I'm not gonna meet my mortgage,

I don't just sit there and become paralyzed.

I gotta continue to work, okay?

Gideon is continuing to try his best

to survive under devastating circumstances.

And so he's hiding himself in this wine press

to try to get this food and I love,

my favorite part of the story happens right at the top.

The angel of the Lord sits down under a tree

and he sees Gideon and he says,

"The Lord is with you, mighty warrior."

I love that we serve a God who will sit down

right in the middle of our circumstance,

look us eyeball to eyeball and say,

"I am with you, mighty warrior."

We serve a God who is compassionate,

who is kind, who cares about you.

Some would argue that we have a God

who looks at somebody like Gideon

who is fearful and distances himself and says,

"I'm not going to have anything to do

with that fearful person."

But that's not the God we serve.

The God we serve will meet you right where you are.

And some of you this morning need a God who breathes stars

to meet you right where you are.

And I tell you, he's here this morning

and he wants to meet you.

He sits down under the tree and says,

"The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.

The Lord is with you, mighty warrior."

Now when I read that in scripture,

when we read that, we kind of rise up

because we see the Lord is with you, mighty warrior.

We kind of get worked up and amped up

about that mighty warrior part.

But can I tell you the most important part

of this statement is not mighty warrior,

it is the Lord is with you.

Because if you can grapple and understand

that the Lord is with you,

then the mighty warrior part comes.

But so often we just hear the mighty warrior part

and then we get insecure because we know

I'm not a mighty warrior,

but you're forgetting the part that God is with you.

He is with you because you're not a mighty warrior

without him.

You're not a mighty warrior without the Lord.

And so the most important part of that

is the Lord is with you.

So God tells Gideon, he says,

"Go in your strength and save Israel."

Now I'm gonna tell you all throughout this story,

God asked Gideon to do a lot of things

that do not make sense.

He asked Gideon to do some things that do not make sense.

And the first thing he says is,

"I want you to go in your own strength.

"I want you to go in your strength and save Israel."

That's literally what the scripture says.

"I want you to go in your strength and save Israel."

Now I believe God intentionally did that

because when he approaches us with any type of task,

he is trying to get us to a place

where we have to answer with,

"I am the weakest and I am the least."

I am the weakest and I am the least.

Gideon replies and says,

"Lord, you're gonna try to send me to do this task?

"My tribe is the weakest and I am the least in my family."

Can I tell you that God has an uncanny knack

of using the weakest, the least,

the unqualified, the ill-equipped.

He has the uncanny knack of using the one in the room

that says he could never use me

because I've done this, this, and this.

Anybody qualify to be used by God

based on that definition?

God has this ability to take the lowest of the low

and raise them up to make them a valiant warrior for him.

And we know what God can do with a response like this

because it says, "My grace is sufficient for you,

"for my power is made perfect in," what?

"In your weakness."

Guys, there's so many times when I'm missing the power of God

because I'm operating out of my strength.

I don't wanna operate out of my strength.

I need to operate out of my weakness

because then he will come and bless me and use me

and be glorified through me.

And so this is where I want to camp today is this.

It is never about your ability.

It is always about your faith.

It is never about your ability.

It is always about your faith.

If you guys just knew truly how ill-equipped

I feel to do the assignments that God has given me,

if you just knew the inner workings

and the turmoil of my heart and my mind and my psyche,

the internal battles I contend with,

I promise I would not be the first on your list

to be a dad, a father, to be a husband,

to be a pastor, to be a leader at a school.

I promise you I would not make the cut

if I listed all of the things that I contend with but God.

And if there's anything that you ever see

that is good out of me, I can promise you

it is not Kevin O'Dea, it is God Almighty

because anything I have is like filthy rags

and that is not just a cliche statement, it is the truth.

It is the truth that anything that comes out of me,

I still question God, why would you ask me to do X, Y, and Z?

Why would you bless me and use me to do all of these things?

I still, I think I'm one of God's biggest jokes.

But I hope that I'm able to give Him the glory

when He does something really good.

Gideon is human and so God says

that He wants him to go and save Israel

and Gideon says, "I need a sign.

"Give me a sign about your reality."

And so he goes off and he gets a sacrifice

and he brings it and he lays it on the altar

before the angel of the Lord.

The angel of the Lord patiently waits for him to go

and do that, he brings it back and the Word tells us

that fire consumes this offering.

It consumes it.

And surely enough, right before Gideon's eyes,

he believed this is God.

This is the God of the universe, even so much so

that Gideon thought he was gonna die

because he was in the presence of a holy God.

The angel disappears and the voice of the Lord continues,

"Can I tell you that the Lord will nudge you along

"in your disbelief to the point where you believe?"

He will nudge you along as you continue to walk

to prove himself who He is, that He is true.

The starting place of your faith

is acknowledging the existence of God.

Let me say that again.

The starting place of your faith

is acknowledging the existence of God.

And Gideon responds in a reverent fear of the Lord.

Reverent fear of the Lord, God,

you must be who you say you are.

So what happens next in the story?

Those of you who are following the Bible reading plan,

hopefully you know what happens next, okay?

The next thing that God does is not go

and rescue the Israelites from Gideon.

Why not?

Because we still have some idols and some gods

that we're contending with.

See, here's the thing.

We want God to take care of the problem

without getting to the root issue.

But God is all about the root.

And so He says to Gideon, "I want you to go

"and I want you to knock down that altar

"that they have built to Baal."

Gideon's like, "Me?

"You want me to go and do this?"

And so the word tells us that Gideon,

still grappling with some fear at night,

goes into the town and knocks that down.

So much so that the next day, all the people rally,

all the Israelite people rally around

and want to kill Gideon.

Doesn't that tell you how grossly tied in

the Israelites were to a false god?

That they were willing to kill Gideon

who knocked it down for the one true God?

But here's the thing.

I'd like to submit to you this morning

that I think there's some things that we have heart ties to

that we would be willing to keep,

metaphorically kill for,

to maintain their structure in our life,

to maintain their appearance in our life.

And God wants those things to be knocked down.

He wants those things to be knocked down.

Anything that takes the place of the Lord is an idol.

Anything that takes the place of the Lord,

listen, I don't believe that God,

it's not like a two-seater car.

It's not like the Lord just sits there and says,

"Okay, we'll let your other God be here

"and we'll just kind of hang out together."

God says, "It's me or nothing else."

And so I wonder if sometimes the question

that we need to ask ourselves in the altar space

isn't God, would you help me, provide for me,

do all of these things,

but God, help me to surrender completely to you.

Because if your sovereignty is in my life

and you are completely in my life

and you are truly my one thing,

then I have the faith to believe

that all the rest of this stuff is gonna get taken care of

because you're in the midst of it all.

You're in the midst of it all.

God doesn't want to share the throne.

So the first thing that God does

is remove the thing that's taking its place

and the altar veil is destroyed.

And so Gideon comes before the Lord,

the altar's been destroyed,

and he gets before the Lord and he says,

"Now listen, God, I hear what you're saying.

"I know you want to send me to rescue Israel,

"but I just really wanna make sure it's you.

"I wanna make sure this is what you're telling me to do.

"So I'm gonna put this fleece outside my door.

"And if the fleece is wet and the ground is dry tonight,

"then I know that this is your will."

He goes to bed and he wakes up the next morning

and guess what happened?

The fleece was wet and the ground was dry.

Now tell me it's not human what happens next.

I just wanna make extra, extra sure, God.

So I tell you what,

maybe somebody kicked a glass of water over on that fleece.

I don't know.

I tell you what, God, what if we do this?

How about tonight, if the fleece is dry

and the ground's wet, then I will definitely know it's you.

Anybody?

Yeah.

Guess what happens?

It's exactly as he said.

The ground was wet, the fleece was dry.

So I get asked as a pastor sometimes,

"Kevin, you think it's okay for people

"to put a fleece out before the Lord?

"Do you think it's okay for people to, man, what,

"I mean, is that lack of faith,

"isn't that like disobedience and all the,"

et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Here's what I want us to understand.

I want us to take away two things

with regard to that question.

Number one, I want you to understand

that at this point in the story

where Gideon puts out the fleece,

he has already acknowledged the sovereignty of God.

He's not asking if God is real.

He's not asking, he's not trying to consider

whether or not this is the voice of the Lord necessarily.

He has already determined this is God.

What he's wanting is clarification,

is this what you want me to do?

Is this your will?

That's the first thing.

The second thing is I believe in a patient God

who will nudge you along in your faith.

But here's the thing.

If you put a fleece out before the Lord

and he gives you an answer,

you better do what he says to do.

Because you're talking about the God of the universe,

the God who breathes stars.

He will not be mocked.

The word tells us not to test the Lord,

to bring him into a state of testing.

And I believe with the right heart posture,

I believe I have put fleeces before the Lord.

In fact, I would not be your lead pastor

without putting a fleece in front of the Lord.

Her name is Norah Joy, and she's here.

I'm telling you, God is so faithful and he will make it.

Can I tell you that the God we serve

is not the God of confusion?

He's not trying to trick you.

He's not trying to make it hard on you.

He is very clear.

Sometimes because of our inner turmoil,

we are blind to what everybody else around us sees.

He makes things so evident and clear before people.

And unfortunately, when we don't get it,

when we don't hear it right,

he makes it abundantly clear around us.

Sometimes you get exposed from other people

because you're not willing to lay down your pride

or your selfishness or the thing that you want,

or you're not willing to destroy that altar to Baal.

And so God has to illuminate it to other people

and bring it out.

I am so glad that the Lord will correct me

in the privacy of my own home sometimes, anybody?

I am so glad that he does that with me and he corrects me.

But let me tell you, if he's not my one thing,

he sure enough will use you all to make sure I know.

God is so, he is so faithful.

And God sees things from an eternal perspective.

He sees things from an eternal perspective.

So Gideon puts this fleece out and God answers him.

And so he rallies 32,000 men.

Now I want you to understand something, okay?

All of these men, these 32,000 men,

they are in the same position as Gideon.

They've been in the same,

their food has been taken, their stuff has been taken.

They are scared out of their mind, just like Gideon.

But Gideon has rallied 32,000 men.

And he says, all right guys, we're gonna go in

and we're gonna conquer Midian.

We're gonna do this.

And God says, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second, Gideon.

There's a few too many guys here.

We're gonna need to reduce the army size

because here's the thing,

if I let you 32,000 men go out and do this,

you're gonna take the credit that I deserve, says the Lord.

And so the Lord says, here's what we'll do.

Go to the people and ask them a question.

Are you scared?

And if you're scared, you can go home.

I'm sorry, I think it's funny.

22,000 said, got that right.

Who is, no.

Boo boo the fool.

They walked out, they left.

10,000 remaining.

And Gideon's like, okay, whoo, 22,000 are gone.

10,000, let's take a deep breath, everybody.

It's gonna be okay.

God has given me a sign through this fleece.

I'm good, we'll figure this out.

10,000, at least I know that you all aren't scared.

We're gonna be good.

And God says, ah, Gideon, Gideon, Gideon.

I still think there's too many people here.

And my patience is wearing thin,

so we're gonna fast track this, okay?

So here's what I want you to do.

Let's take them down to get a drink.

And those who lap the water like a dog,

we're gonna keep those.

And those who bow down with their knee

and get water another way, they get to go home.

Now, I'm sure Gideon is walking around going,

come on, stick that tongue out.

Come on, he's trying to figure out, come on.

Come on, come on, guys.

300 remain.

32,000 to 300 people.

And God says, all right, I think I can do it with that.

My goodness.

What Gideon must have felt in that moment,

going from 32,000, God, I have some security in 32,000 men.

I don't know about 300.

God says, don't put your security in the men at all.

Because you plus God will always equal the majority.

You plus God will always equal the majority.

And so what I want us to understand is this.

God's way will require very little of you

and a whole lot of Him.

Very little of you and a whole lot of Him.

Why is it that God's ways seem not to make sense?

Why is it that when He tells us to do something,

it's kinda like, I don't know.

This doesn't seem to add up or compute.

Here's the thing.

My thoughts are not your thoughts, says the Lord.

Either my ways, your ways.

God has a picture of eternity and a story

that far supersedes anything you can think of

and anything you can do on your strength.

And He wants to do it His way.

Here's the thing.

Faith requires you to go against your natural instincts.

There's natural instincts, which are my strength,

and there are supernatural instincts,

which He has to get involved with.

So here's what this looks like.

Hey, here's the thing.

I know that you guys think I'm real buff

and I can lift weights and stuff,

but I really can't, okay?

And so I got these little,

not barbells, dumbbells here.

And I can lift these.

I can lift these.

This is pretty easy.

I can lift these.

And you know what?

Most of the time, this is what we look like as Christians.

We say, I got this going on.

I can handle the strength and the weight.

I can handle this myself.

God, I don't see a need for you to get involved, right?

Why would I need a God if I can lift the weight myself?

Right?

In fact, God, you're actually gonna mess things up

if you get over here.

So just go take your place and...

But wait a second.

Here's the thing.

I can't come in here with these

because if I come in here with these,

you guys are gonna make fun of me.

And when I'm carrying a lightweight Christianity,

you guys might talk bad about me.

So let me go get something just a little bit bigger.

Yeah, these are a little bit bigger.

And behind the scenes, I might have to set these down,

but in front of you,

I still can do this, right?

Okay.

He must be a great Christian.

He must be, man, he must be, he must, man,

he's doing a lot for ministry.

He's doing a lot with the Lord.

He's got super faith.

And I'm just walking around

doing everything on my own strength.

Just piling on because you know a mark of a good Christian

is piling your plate as high as you can

with Christian stuff to do.

Right?

God, there's no room on my plate for you.

There's no room for you, but I got this, God.

I got this.

And guess what?

The church loves me for it.

I can't wait till they see me.

You know what?

If we had an award show,

I would definitely get the best award for that ministry

'cause I'm carrying it so well.

How do you balance all that, Kev?

Yeah, it's so good, right?

And then I go behind the scenes and I go, ugh, right?

But here's the thing.

This is what it is.

We look over here and we see this thing.

And we go, now I don't know if I can lift that.

And if I try to lift it,

I certainly don't want y'all looking at me trying to lift it

'cause y'all gonna make fun of me, okay?

So, yeah.

Yeah, okay.

Okay?

But here's the thing.

God hasn't called me to this.

He didn't call me to that.

Guess what he called me to?

He called me to the thing that I can't pick up.

He called me to the thing that I'm gonna have to rely

on his strength for.

And see, here's the thing.

The word tells us that we do not fight

against flesh and blood,

but against the spiritual forces of this world.

And so, aren't you glad

that you're not contending with swords?

Like, I don't think any of you are contending right now

with having to pull your sword out

and chop somebody's head off.

I don't think that's probably the battle.

But let me tell you what the battle is.

I don't have enough money in my bank account,

and God says, "But I still want you to give."

Come on out here.

This is what this looks like.

Jesus arrives on the scene.

Buff with tattoos.

Here's what he does.

He says, "Get your eye off the weight

"and put your eyes on Jesus."

God, my bank account's empty,

so I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

And you're telling me to give?

He says, "I got it."

Man, that person hurt me.

That person devastated me.

And you want me to love them still?

He says, "I got it."

We miscarried that baby.

And you still want me to have hope,

that you have hope for me and my future?

He says, "I got it."

That relationship is that marriage seems,

my marriage seems to be on the rocks and destroyed,

and I don't know, you still want me

to have the faith to believe?

He says, "I got it, keep your eyes on me."

God, I don't know if I can do it anymore.

I'm worn out.

I can't even lift anything anymore.

And he's still got it.

He's still got it.

Even when you don't have the strength to even participate,

he's still got it.

Amen?

Thank you, brother.

See, he wants you to pick up the thing

that you can't pick up on your own,

because if he can pick it up for you,

then he will get the glory he deserves.

And guess what?

That means he becomes your one thing,

and you're not stuck worshiping the gods of this world,

the gods of envy and greed and all of these things,

but he becomes your focus because he's a powerful God.

And guess what?

He still allows you to be elevated in the process.

He still blesses you in the process.

Guys, we have to stop contending with the smaller things

that rely on our own strength,

and we have to trust this great, glorious,

big, star-breathing God with the things of faith,

the things that are waiting for us,

and answer the call.

Some of us have not said yes to a ministry or an assignment,

have not laid down things,

because you don't trust the Lord.

You wanna keep doing it in your strength,

and he says, "Lay it down.

"I've got you.

"I've got you.

"Here's the thing.

"Your enemy might be big, but guess what?

"Your God is bigger.

"Your God is bigger."

And let me tell you, this is why I believe

that the Lord chose Gideon.

It's for the end of the story in chapter eight.

This is the reason I think he chose Gideon.

The Israelites said to Gideon, "Rule over us,

"you, your son, and your grandson,

"because you have saved us from the hand of Midian."

Isn't it so easy to go in to battle and defeat and win

and be successful and then take all the glory?

But this is what Gideon's reply was.

He said, "I will not rule over you,

"nor will my son rule over you.

"The Lord will rule over you."

And when you have a heart posture

that allows the Lord to be elevated,

he can use you to do supernatural things.

You usually do supernatural things.

Worship team, would you come out here?

I also want to say, if God is for us,

who can be against us?

Who can be against us?

If you're contending with things, who can be against you?

I wanna tell you a testimony right now,

and then we're gonna pray.

Few weeks ago, we took a group of seniors on a senior trip.

And prior to that, I had gone to the business collective,

and I listened to Josh McLeod share,

and he had challenged us to identify a place

where we need a miracle, a place where we need courage,

and something that we need to know.

And I tell you, to identify those things, it takes faith.

We're only a miracle, we're only courage,

and what do I need to know?

So on this trip with these seniors,

we were doing devotionals with them each day,

and the kids did a great job sharing

from their heart, devotionals.

First one was about idol worship.

Go figure how we need to rid ourselves of idols.

And we started to walk down the path with them

in these devotionals, just watching the hand

of a sovereign God weave through all of these devotionals

and time together in the Lord.

So I posed this question to them.

I said, what is the place that you need a miracle?

Where do you need courage, and what do you need to know?

Well, we had gone through and talked through

about places where we need courage,

and two of the kids had admitted out loud to Miss Coble,

we need the courage to actually believe that Jesus is real.

And man, that hit.

And the reason it hit was because their eternity

is in the balance.

Their life is in the balance.

And so we were like, Lord, Holy Spirit, would you move?

And so we're going through these devotionals

and we're talking to the students.

If we're gonna go to church on Sunday,

to this church that nobody's been to,

we don't know what the message is or anything like that,

and I told them that day we are going to,

on Saturday, I said, on Sunday night,

I want you to be ready to answer where you need a miracle.

And so we're driving into the church

and we get into the church and they have five services.

We're at the fourth service, we're up in the balcony.

And the pastor gets up and he says,

guys, I'm gonna do something that I haven't done

in a very long time.

He says, I'm gonna preach a brief sermon

on the pool of the sestah, and at the end of this service,

for the last 15 minutes, we're gonna ask the Lord

to meet you where you need a miracle.

And I just turned around and looked at the kids

and they looked at me because we had just talked about this.

And I just started in my spirit saying,

okay, Lord, I sent your presence,

I see what you're doing, would you just move?

Well, it gets to the last 15 minutes of the service,

and I'm up there and they're playing a worship song

and I'm looking at the kids and nobody's moving.

And I'm saying, Lord, what do you want me to do?

Do you want me to like grab their hands

and bring them down?

Because I mean, they all have miracles in their spirits.

I mean, what do you want me to do?

And he always said, he said, Kevin, I want you to go.

So I want me to go.

Okay, so I make my way down or whatnot,

I'm thinking, well, God, where do I need a miracle?

Okay, Lord, I need $7 million.

We have a school and I would love to pay everything off.

I would love to pay teachers more than anybody else

in the state, and I would like to have my dream vision

come true at the school, $7 million.

Don't you think that would be a miracle

to receive $7 million?

And so I go down there and I'm waiting in line,

I'm singing this song, I'm in worship,

and I get up to this guy who's gonna pray with us.

And he begins to pray with me,

or he begins to pray with the person in front of me.

And as we're worshiping, I turn around

and I look up in the balcony at the students.

And I look and I see Sydney and I see Bryce,

the two who said, we need courage

to know that Jesus Christ is real.

And can I tell you, when I turned around, I began to weep.

And I said, God, $7 million is a drop in the bucket for you.

The real miracle today would be

that those two give their life to you.

And so I just wept there with that man as we prayed.

And he said, would you bring those two down?

And I went up, I didn't think they were gonna come down,

but I went up and got grabbed them and Miss Coble.

And we went down and he prayed with them.

And they didn't give their life, he was so gracious.

They didn't give their life at that moment to the Lord,

but he really sowed in some prayers.

Well, can I tell you at the end of that trip,

we were in a circle and we were praying for one another

and we prayed for the person on your right.

And we get around that circle

and Sydney's sitting next to me.

And she's the one who doesn't believe in the Lord.

And she prays this outrageous prayer for me.

And so at the end of the prayer,

I look at her and I say, Sydney,

thank you for praying such an incredible prayer

to a God you don't believe in.

And she looked at me and said, Mr. O'Dea,

I believe every single word I just prayed.

And my heart just went, yes, Lord, thank you, Jesus.

So we fly home and we get home.

And the very first thing I like to do after a trip

is go check the mailbox.

And I go into the mailbox and I look in the mailbox

and a check from IRS is in there for $95,000.

To date, I have received $700,000 from the IRS,

10% of what my ask was.

And the Lord said, it's not the 7 million,

but it's a nudge for you to know

that you can trust me by faith.

I want you to understand, I want you to understand,

I opened this message by saying,

sometimes we are praying for the symptom,

but we are supposed to be addressing the root.

I want you to know the whole reason I even have the school

is because I want kids to know the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's more important.

And so when you're focusing on the root,

when he's the one thing, all of the rest of it

will be taken care of by the glorious, star-breathing God

who does miracles, amen?

Stand with me this morning, we're gonna worship.

If you need a miracle, if you need God to do something,

if you're contending, if you need to put a fleece out

before the Lord, if you're questioning, if you're doubting,

I want you to come this morning

because God has an answer for you.

The Holy Spirit of God is real, he is here, he is voting.

Guys, come on down if you're gonna pray with people.

He is real and he is alive and he's here today.

Don't leave here, don't leave here

the same way that you came.

Without faith, it is impossible to please the Lord.

And so I ask you, I beseech you

to come before this glorious God.

And hey, and to ask him, Lord,

would you be the one thing in my life I surrender?

Let's worship.

(gentle music)

you