Hall of Failure - Leaders' Talks

Alright, good evening, roadsters.

Is that what you call yourselves?

Alright, good.

Good.

I got that right then.

It is good to be with you.

If you have a Bible with you or a Bible app, then please pull that out.

Don't use this as an opportunity to check your email, but uh turn with me to Judges chapter six, if you would please.

Judges chapter six.

And let's pray and then let's look into the Lord's word tonight.

Father, we thank you for your incredible, gracious heart towards us.

Lord, I thank you for this fellowship and for their pastor, for their leaders.

I pray, Father, that you would continue to bless them and grow them in maturity in their relationship with you.

Father, I pray that tonight would be a part of that process.

That Lord, as we look into your word, our hearts would be transformed and our lives would be just a little bit more changed, that we would not leave here tonight in the same condition as when we came in, Father.

Even if we came in here in good condition.

Lord, we pray that we would learn and that we would grow and that we would draw nearer to you.

So, Father, may your spirit work through your word this evening in the hearts and lives of your people.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, uh I guess Steve mentioned to me, he says, you know, next time you come and teach, just share just a little bit about yourself.

And uh, I I generally don't like to do that because we're not here for me, but uh just so that you know where I'm coming from when I approach the word and where I'm at in my life, um, I am married.

I've been married for 31 years.

Uh God bless her.

Uh, she says it's the 15 happiest years of her life.

And um we have four children, they're all out.

Um love them dearly, but I but you know, I've looked forward to this time in my life in life when we are empty nesters.

Uh, we have our second and third grandchildren on the way from two different kids, one in March, one in June.

And uh so I'm a grandfather, so I'm old.

And um and so I I might be a little old for some of you.

Some of my references, you know, might catch some of you younger folks off guard, but uh we'll we'll try to grow through this together.

Um, I was sharing with someone out in front right beforehand.

We were talking about grandchildren and what an awesome, awesome privilege they are.

How many of you are grandparents?

Aren't grandchildren the best?

Aren't you glad you let your kids live?

I mean, wasn't that awesome?

And uh you do understand why grandparents and grandchildren get along so well.

Common enemy.

And so let's uh let's go ahead and jump into this.

I'm kidding, of course.

Judges chapter 6, we are going to begin at verse 11.

Judges 6 · chapter mention

And uh we don't get to catch all of the flow, but when I was here last time, I even referenced this, I believe, in my teaching.

I'm kind of on this kick right now with Hebrews chapter 11 in my personal study.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

Uh it's not something we've been going through in our fellowship on Sunday mornings, but it is something that's just been on my heart.

I've gone back and back and back to Hebrews chapter 11, which most people refer to very quickly as the Hall of Faith, right?

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

The faith chapter.

Um, I have retitled that.

I have taken that upon myself to change uh 2,000 years probably of tradition, and I refer to it as the hall of failure.

Because there is so much failure contained in the lives of those men and women that are mentioned in the hall of faith.

That doesn't negate their faith.

I think that's critically important, and ultimately, that's what the chapter is about.

I get that.

Don't hurt, you know, grab me after and hurt me after the study.

And uh, I do get it.

That's the overall gist of the chapter.

It's about their faith.

But the point for me is how their faith endured through their failure, and how God showed up in the midst of really, in many cases, some pretty wrecked lives.

Some men who really did some enormously crazy things.

Um, and I think I even mentioned that to you the last time I was here.

I might have done this, but we're gonna do this exercise again.

So if I'm repeating myself, 51 years of age allows you to do that.

So, how many of you have ever failed in your life?

Okay, looking around.

Yeah, there's some young folks.

You you drop your rocks last, but that's okay.

Um, we've all failed, right?

We've all failed.

How many of you have ever failed significantly?

And like your failure hurt a lot of people.

Okay?

A lot of us, right?

How many of you, though, expect that 4,000 years from now we'll still be talking about your failure?

Mike.

Yeah.

We talk about your failure all the time.

Uh seriously, we just don't anticipate that, do we?

But who do we refer to in the scripture as the father of faith?

Abraham.

And Abraham blew it so badly, you can't turn on your TV today and not on a news station and not see some reference to some blow-up in the Middle East that is traced all the way back to Abraham's failure.

But he's the father of faith.

And I know the scripture declares that he is in the presence of God.

So when you seem like you're overwhelmed by your failure, guys like Abraham really encourage us.

Guys like Gideon, whose story we're gonna look at tonight, I think can be a great encouragement to all of us, to me and for you.

So let's set the stage.

We are in a time of Israel's history where there's no king.

God keeps raising up judges to rule and to lead the people.

So the chapter begins by laying out Israel's situation.

They were being oppressed by a group of people called the Midianites, who actually are related to the Israelites.

Abraham, after the death of Sarah, remarried.

He married a woman named Katurah.

Midian was one of the offspring from that relationship.

So the Midianites have come out of Abraham as well as the Israelites.

But they are now at enmity with one another.

The Midianites hate the Israelites, the Israelites hate the Midianites, and obviously the Midianites are not even interested in following after the true and living God.

They're worshiping idols, they're worshiping all sorts of false gods.

Israel, meantime, keeps going through this pattern throughout the book of Judges.

They go through the same pattern over and over and over again.

Rebellion, right?

They rebel against God, retribution, God sells them into the hands of their enemies until they learn their lesson, then they come back in repentance.

That's the third step of this pattern.

So rebellion, retribution, repentance, at which point God forgives them and they enter into a time of restoration and then finally rest, only to start the cycle all over again.

Rebellion, retribution, repentance, restoration, and rest.

Well, at this point in Judges chapter 6, they're in the at the point of retribution.

Judges 6 · chapter mention

They're under the oppression of the Midianites, who would come in as the Israelites would grow their crops, the Midianites would come in and they'd wait.

They would wait until the crops actually were bearing fruit, and then they'd come in and take all of the fruit at harvest time.

But the Israelites are now moving into the repentance phase when they realize that their real problem is not the Midianites.

Outwardly you would look and say, Israel, what's your problem?

What are you dealing with?

What do you need prayer for?

And they're realizing they don't need prayer about the Midianite situation.

Their disobedience to God is the real problem.

And they're recognizing that and they're turning back to the Lord in repentance.

So it says in verse 11, the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth tree, which was in Ophrah.

That's not Winfrey, just to let you know.

Which belonged to Joash, the Abbeyzrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress in order to hide it from the Midianites.

Alright, I think Steve, you guys, your pastor has taught you, I am certain, that our God has a sense of humor, correct?

Right?

We realize that.

Are we all good with that?

Because every once in a while somebody gets really bent out of shape.

But they did that with Spurgeon, too.

Spurgeon had an old woman come to him after a service and say, That was a great study, but in this is Charles Spurgeon.

He's the prince of preachers, although he may not have been known that way then.

But he has this lady come up to him and say, say to him, I liked your message most of it, but you just had too much humor.

There was too much humor in your message.

And he said, Madam, if you only knew how much I hold back.

So I'm sure your pastor feels that way.

I know that he's taught you that, that there is a sense of humor attached to our God.

In fact, I think that's the one thing that in every class I have ever sat through on the attributes of God, that's the one thing they never cover is his sense of humor.

But if you ever doubt it, just take a look around.

Look at who he's chosen.

You say, we don't have to, we're looking right at you.

And yes, he obviously has a sense of humor.

This is hilarious.

This is something we're kind of detached from in our culture.

We don't thresh wheat, all right?

We go down and we buy loaves of bread pre-made.

They had to thresh their wheat, which means that they would throw the stalks of wheat out onto a threshing floor.

They would have either a bunch of people or oxen or something that would roll over or run over the wheat to separate the kernel of wheat inside of the husk from the chaff.

The chaff was much lighter.

And so then they would take what they called winnowing fans and they would toss this stuff up in the air as the wind blew through, and the wind would take the lighter chaff, the husks, and blow it away, and the heavier kernels would fall back to the ground.

Okay?

We all get that.

But where is Gideon trying to thresh the wheat?

In the winepress, hiding.

How much breeze do you suppose is blowing through the wine press where he's hiding?

He's got walls high enough so the Midianites can't see the wheat being thrown into the air.

I just see this guy standing there throwing this up, and it's all just fallen right back down on top of him.

And why is he hiding?

Because he's scared.

This is a critical point of this entire recounting of the life of Gideon.

He is afraid.

So he's hiding in the wine press this hero that God chooses, terrified, scared to death.

It's why I have given Gideon a nickname.

I call him Super Chicken.

Some of you older folks, you probably remember the cartoon Super Chicken, right?

No?

Come on, call for Super Chicken.

Pacak! Right?

Okay, you remember that?

You younger folks, go home and YouTube it.

Not now.

I don't want to hear that every 30 seconds throughout the service.

Mike.

Alright, so I call him Super Chicken.

He's hiding out in the wine press.

And get this, look what God does.

Verse 12.

And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor.

Now, the way I picture this, God appears right behind him as he's throwing this stuff up and he's worried about the Midianites, and God says, Ho, mighty man of valor.

Ah! Gideon throws his, you know, his winnowing fan up in the air.

He's got to be terrified.

This had to have scared him half to death.

Mighty man of valor?

And listen to Gideon's response, verse 13.

Gideon said to him, Oh 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 forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.

Doesn't sound much like a man of faith right here, does he?

He sounds like a man who's afraid and a man who is questioning.

I think that a lot of this whole account is about God preparing Gideon.

It's not even so much about when God acts to deliver his people, it's not going to be that big a deal.

It's going to be a pretty simple battle.

All of this chapter and into chapter seven is about God preparing a man who was fearful, who was a chicken, who's a sissy basically, and taking him and making him into what God declares him to be, a mighty man of valor.

And so here's Gideon, he's struggling with that his feeling that the Lord has forsaken them.

If you care about us, if you're with us, why is all this stuff happening in our lives?

Well, good grief.

How many of us have asked that question?

How many times have we sat with the Lord?

Sometimes with a humble heart and sometimes quite arrogantly, and said, Lord, where are you?

If you had been here, this wouldn't have happened.

If you cared about me, that wouldn't have happened.

And it brings us to that age-old question I suppose everyone wrestles with at some point in their life.

Why is there so much suffering in this world?

Well, Israel had a direct cause and effect relationship with their sin.

And I think for us, it's not always cause and effect, it's not always that close a correlation.

We can't look at some specific issue and necessarily say that happened because of some specific sin.

But we do know that bad things happen because of sin, because of the simple reality that we live in a sinful, fallen world.

And sometimes we act as Christians as though we expect that this is heaven.

This isn't heaven.

News flash.

This isn't heaven.

And it wasn't intended to be heaven with sin in the world.

And many times it's going to creep into our lives, not even necessarily our own sin, but have you been in a place where someone else's sin causes suffering?

Sure we have.

That's the world in which we live, and the world that we will see one day redeemed.

Well, verse 14, the Lord turned to him and said, I love this, go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites.

Have I not sent you?

So Gideon said to him, Oh 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.

The tribe of Manasseh wasn't even a full tribe, was it?

Manasseh was a half tribe.

So they were a weak tribe.

He says, I come from a weak tribe and a weak family within a weak tribe, and I am the weakest in my weak family within my weak tribe.

And he could have thrown in, and my dad's an idolater.

He could have.

He doesn't seem to bring that up.

But Gideon sure has a lot of excuses, doesn't he?

But I can't do this.

I'm nothing, and my father's family is nothing, and my tribe is nothing, and we're in Israel, which basically is nothing because the Midianites have control over us.

All these excuses.

But God has just given him the secret in verse 14.

Have I not sent you?

That's the point.

It's not about you, Gideon.

It's not about you.

It's about what God, the creator of the universe, the omniscient, omnipotent one, that means all-knowing and all-powerful, what he is doing in and through your life, Gideon.

It's not about whether you can save Israel.

God sends you to do something, God empowers you to do something.

So go, Gideon.

The Lord said to him, verse 16, surely I will be with you, and you shall.

Aren't you glad God says things that definitively?

You shall defeat the Midianites as one man.

What if God says, Go, I'll be with you, and I think you might defeat the Midianites.

Then he'd be even more scared.

But we serve a God who sees the end from the beginning.

Amen.

He sees the end result.

We're the ones who cower and shake and tremble and hold back many times because we don't know how it's going to turn out.

Rather than saying, okay, I'll go.

And God's going to take this man, super chicken, and turn him into that mighty man of valor.

So he said to him, Gideon said to the Lord, If now I have found favor in your sight, then show me a sign that it is you who talk with me.

I guess because suddenly appearing in the wine press out of nowhere is insufficient.

Wow.

He says to him, Show me a sign.

Verse 18, Do not depart from here, I pray, until I come to you and bring out my offering and set it before you.

And the Lord said, I will wait until you come back.

So Gideon went in and prepared a young goat.

Now, this is not a short process.

He goes in and prepares a young goat and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour, okay?

And the meat he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot, and he brought them out to him under the terebinth tree and presented them.

Does it remind you of Genesis chapter 18?

Genesis 18 · chapter mention

You're going, yeah, Genesis chapter 18.

Genesis 18 · chapter mention

Yeah, of course.

Abraham.

Didn't Abraham bring a meal out and offer it to God?

I wonder if that's what's on his mind.

I wonder if he realizes at this point that, you know, maybe this is the Lord.

And so I go in, I prepare a young goat and some unleavened bread.

It was probably angel food cake, and he brings it out.

And I wonder if he's thinking at this point, well, I is this God?

I mean, he did just kind of pop in, and I guess this will kind of be the test, and and I'll see by how he responds.

But I wonder if God will have dinner with me.

I wonder if God will have dinner with me.

It's an amazing place of fellowship, isn't it?

And isn't it what the Lord has promised every single one of us?

I stand at the door and knock.

If any man hears my voice and opens the door, I come in and I have fellowship and communion with him.

Well, the angel of God said to him, verse 20, Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this rock and pour out the broth.

I just I just put myself, listen, I try to put myself in this account.

I try to put myself in their shoes or sandals and imagine what they're dealing with.

He comes out with the meat and the broth, and God says, Pour the broth out.

But I but I just made this.

Set it on the rock.

Okay.

At least he was obedient, because it says he did so.

Then, verse 21 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 rose out of the rock and consumed the jerky and toast.

Because I oh, I'm sorry, that's my translation.

Consume the meat and the unleavened bread.

And the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight.

Note that, please, just make note of that.

Fire comes from the rock, burns up the meat, burns up the bread.

It's an offering that is consumed in the fire.

The angel of the Lord then just disappears.

Just like he popped in, he pops out.

He disappeared from Gideon's sight.

Now Gideon perceived, verse 22, that he was the angel of the Lord.

Not only is he a chicken, he's brilliant too.

So Gideon said, Alas, O Lord God, for I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.

Now he's terrified again.

Why?

Because he's super chicken.

But he's terrified because remember what happened with Moses.

When Moses said to the Lord in Exodus chapter 33, Let me see your glory.

Exodus 33 · chapter mention

And the Lord allowed Moses to see the back of his glory.

But he said, You can't see my face, Moses, because no man can see my face and live.

Obviously, this is on Gideon's mind, and he's thinking, Oh no, that was the angel of the Lord, and I've seen him, and I'm gonna die.

Moses had asked to see God's glory.

Gideon hadn't asked to see God's glory.

He's not seeing the face of God the way that Moses even saw the back of God in his glory.

He saw God manifesting apparently as a man who popped into this winepress.

But now he's all freaked out, thinking that he's going to die.

Then, verse 23, the Lord said to him, Peace be with you, do not fear, you shall not die.

And this just cracks me up.

Because remember what I told you to make note of?

He's disappeared.

So now this voice speaks out of nowhere.

Gideon's terrified already, and he hears a voice.

And I don't know what that voice sounds like, probably not like mine.

I don't probably have a manly enough voice to be God, but I don't know what it sounds like.

Peace be with you, you, you, you, you, right?

I don't know.

But it comes out of nowhere.

And God, you know what God's saying to him?

Kideon, use your head.

Use your head.

You're not going to die.

How are you going to go save Israel if I kill you now?

Good grief.

Do you ever marvel at God's patience?

And do you ever marvel, because so here's the second part of the question.

Do you marvel at God's patience with you?

Because I'll be honest with you, usually I marvel at God's patience with everybody else.

Right?

But every once in a while I find myself in a place where I've really blown it and really screwed up.

And then it's like, oh Lord, you're as patient with me, aren't you?

And he generally says no more so.

I just look at this and I think how patient God is with Gideon.

He's terrified, he's questioning God, he's being incredibly stupid.

And God doesn't give up on him.

And how many times have I sat in the presence of God knowing that I'm afraid, questioning him, and being incredibly stupid?

Enough so that I imagine every once in a while God has to just go, oi, they.

But he's patient, and he has not given up on any one of us.

So Gideon, verse 24, built an altar there to the Lord and called it the Lord is peace.

To this day, it is still in Ophra of the Abbeyzrites.

Now I want you to skip down with me to verse 33, because we don't have time tonight to follow through all of this.

But that section that we're going to skip, it's another testimony to Gideon's faith in God at the same time that he's afraid of the situation.

Because it's that account where he goes in and he tears down the idol that his father had been worshiping.

But he does it when?

He does it at night because he's afraid.

And then his father has to come and stick up for him, actually, after Gideon's torn down his idol.

So another account of his fearfulness, but also his faith.

Then verse 33.

All the Midianites and Amalekites, the people of the east, gathered together, and they crossed over and encamped in the valley of Jezreel.

Now, according to chapter 8, verse 1, there are a hundred and thirty-five thousand in this army of Midianites and Amalekites.

But verse 34, the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon.

That's the secret right there to doing what God has called us to do.

That the Spirit of the Lord comes upon us.

Gideon was right in what he said.

I can't save your people.

And God's getting him right where he needs to be, so that he understands when the work is done, it wasn't you, Gideon.

It was God that did it.

So the spirit of the Lord comes upon him, and he blew the trumpet, and the Abe Ezrites gathered behind him, and he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh who also gathered behind him.

He also sent messengers to Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, and they came up to meet him.

So here's Gideon.

He's calling out for everybody.

Come on, you Abbey's rites and all you guys from these other tribes.

We need an army.

There's 135,000 Midianites and Amalekites on the other side, and we need an army over here.

So he gets this army together, 32,000 men.

That's four to one.

In case you're not that quick with the math, I wasn't.

Took me a half hour to work it out today.

But it's in my notes, so I know it.

They're outnumbered four to one.

Those are not good odds.

That means for them to be victorious, about every one of them is going to have to kill four different Amalekites or Midianites.

So verse 36, Gideon said to God, If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said, look, we're all familiar with this story, probably, I shall put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor.

If there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said.

Well, wait a minute.

Didn't he ask God for a sign when he was in the wine press?

You know, the popping in, popping out thing just wasn't enough.

He had to do the whole thing with the burnt offering, right?

So he's asking now for another sign.

Why?

Because he's scared.

Because he's just not sure.

Gang, Gideon is in Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

He's a man of faith, but right now his faith is struggling.

His faith is faltering just a little bit.

So he asked for another sign.

He's still super chicken.

He's outnumbered four to one, and he's scared.

But verse 38, it was so.

When he rose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece together, he wrung the dew out of the fleece a bowl full of water.

Then Gideon said to God, Do not be angry with me, but let me speak just once more.

Let me test, I pray, just once more with the fleece.

Let it now be dry only on the fleece, but on all the ground let there be dew.

He's thinking what most of us would think.

Well, maybe it was a coincidence.

Right?

Isn't that where our brain goes?

We ask God, God, would you do this?

Would you do this?

Would you do this?

He does this, and we go, I'm not sure if that was you.

It could have just happened that way.

Right?

It's it's well, we could go into all kinds of examples.

Maybe it was a coincidence the first time.

So I'm gonna kind of make it tricky on you, God.

Let's switch them around.

Let's see if it's really you telling me to do this.

Well, verse 40, God did so that night.

It was dry on the fleece only, but there was dew on all the ground.

Now, what if God had said, nope, nope, no way, Gideon?

It's no more.

I appeared to you in the wine press, I disappeared from you in the winepress, I gave you my promise, I already gave you two signs.

I consumed the offering, disappeared, and spoke to you out of nowhere.

I did the do right here.

No more, Gideon.

But that's not the heart of God, is it?

He's patient.

He brings him through.

Now, let me say this before we move on, because a lot of Christians adopt this as normative Christianity in how we find the will of God.

Okay?

I am not saying never to put out a fleece, as they say.

I'm not saying that we can't ever put something out there like that, but this should not be the norm.

This account is not of Gideon trusting God and just laying something out to be sure that God was in it.

This is a man who is wrestling with his faith.

This is a man who is questioning what God wanted to do.

So just be careful with that.

This should not be the way that we test every single thing that we sense that God is telling us.

Well, chapter 7, verse 1.

Then Jerobaal, that is Gideon, and all the people who were with him rose early and encamped beside the well of Herod, so that the camp of the Midianites was on the north side of them by the hill of Moray in the valley.

And the Lord said to Gideon, The people who are with you, that's the thirty-two thousand, against the hundred and thirty-five thousand Midianites, you're outnumbered four to one.

The people who are with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands.

Can I ask, does that sound logical to you?

Have you ever noticed that God many times asks us to do the illogical?

That's hard for me.

When I went into the Navy, it was into the nuclear field.

I was a nuclear reactor operator on a submarine.

I was trained to be a scientist.

And yeah, I know.

How did I end up in the ministry?

Go figure.

But that just doesn't work well in my head many times when God comes along and he says, I want you to do this.

Well, but God, that's illogical.

I feel like Spock.

That's illogical.

But he says, I want you to know that I'm the one who is accomplishing this work.

Look what he says.

Lest Israel claim glory for itself against me, saying, My own hand has saved me.

This is why he's going to pare their army down even more.

Because if God gave them victory, they'd just think that they were Rambo or something, right?

Well, we're outnumbered four to one, but we went into battle, man, we took them on.

Because Arnold does that in every movie I've seen him in.

Right?

They would think they were really something.

So God says, verse 3, now therefore proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, Whoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn and depart at once from Mount Gilead.

He says, I want you to stand in front of the people and tell them, if you're scared, just go home.

And twenty-two thousand of the people returned and ten thousand remained.

Now, if I'm Gideon, I'm expecting some to go.

I'm gonna lead them home.

Right?

But no, twenty-two thousand of them left.

More than two-thirds of the army take off.

Now they are outnumbered 13 to 1.

There is no way they can win this battle unless God intervenes.

But the Lord said to Gideon, the people are still too many.

And if I'm Gideon, I'm going, What?

Can we go back to that do thing again?

Thirteen to one, and that's too many?

So God says, Bring them down to the water, and I will test them for you there.

Then it will be that of whom I say to you, this one shall go with you, the same shall go with you.

And of whomever I say to you, this one shall not go with you, the same shall not go.

So he brought the people down to the water.

And the Lord said to Gideon, Everyone who laps from the water with his tongue as a dog laps, you shall set apart by himself.

Likewise, every one who gets down on his knees to drink.

And the number of those who lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was three hundred men, but all the rest of the people got down on their knees to drink water.

Now, God says, I want you to go down, have them drink, and I want you to observe how they're drinking.

The guys that cup their hands and put in the water and bring it up to their mouth, put them in one group.

Okay?

There's 9,700 of those.

He says, then the guys that get down on their knees to drink the water, these guys that stick their face in the water, and that I'm sorry, there were 300 of the guys that laughed.

I got those confused.

300 of the guys that brought it up to their mouth.

9,700 of the guys, they get down there and they get on their hands and knees on the bank and they just stick their face in the water and they're and they get up and they probably all had long hair and they're slinging it everywhere, and that's how they drank.

So there's that group.

So there's 9,700 in one group, 300 in the other, and Gideon's got to be thinking to himself, oh, I'm gonna lose another 300 guys.

No.

Then the Lord said to Gideon, By the 300 men who lapped, I will save you and deliver the Midianites into your hand.

Let all the other people go, every man to his place.

Now, I have heard this taught, because I I was churched when I was younger.

I was many, actually in my earlier years, I was dropped off at church because my parents, I think, enjoyed the free babysitting.

Uh, but then later on, we all went to church together.

So I've sat through quite a few sermons in my lifetime.

And generally, what I have heard is that the guys who, the 300 of them who reached down into the water and brought it up to their mouth, well, they were the ones who were most alert and most observant.

Therefore, they were the ones that God chose because they were ready for battle.

Here's the problem with that.

That completely flies in the face of every single thing that we have talked about so far, right?

Everything we've looked at so far, God is taking things down to a place where there is no hope for them.

So God's not taking the 300 because they're the most observant.

He sends home the 9,700 manly men who got down and stuck their face in the water like mountain men and just got up and swung their hair around, we're ready for battle.

These were the tough guys.

The 300 princes who went down there.

God says, There's your army.

If I'm Gideon, I'm out of here.

Right?

There's your army.

Sachet down there and take care of the Midianites.

Good grief.

By the 300 men who lapped, I will save you and deliver the Midianites into your hand.

Let all the other people go, every man to his place.

And you know the story.

God delivered the entire 135,000 of that army into their hands.

They didn't kill every one of them, but they routed them and the rest took off.

God won the battle.

And how did he send them into battle?

Did he send them in with their weapons and their swords and their spears and their shields and their armor and everything else?

No.

You remember the story?

We don't have time to go through it all.

I'm out of time.

I'm past time.

I'm not apologizing.

I'm just informing you that I know.

But how does he send them into battle?

Do they look like a big group of warriors?

No.

What are they carrying?

Torches and pitchers, flashlights and buckets.

They look like they're going to a birthday party, not to a war.

These 300 guys who wouldn't get down in the mud because they might get dirty, carrying their flashlights and their little buckets, and they go into the battle.

There's his army, led by Super Chicken, God wins the battle.

Because for all of the joking around we've done about Gideon, and joking that has been done good naturedly, but in reality, the man was afraid, he was obedient.

Despite his fear, despite everything else that said this is illogical, he was obedient.

When God said move, ultimately he moved.

God had to take him through a process.

There was another process of even then having to go down into the camp and hear what they were saying.

I mean, even still, he was not convinced.

But God gave a supernatural army or supernatural victory to Gideon and his army.

He gets the enemy so freaked out they start attacking themselves, and 120,000 of them die in this battle.

And God brings about a victory through what would appear to be a fearful man with an absolutely worthless army.

And isn't that what God's all about?

Bringing victory many times through what appears to be a pretty inept, inconsequential army that he chooses to use and to work through because he's a big God.

And there are so many lessons in this account about God's mercy, about God using the foolish things of the world to confound the things that are wise, about God's patience in calling a person and then patiently working with that person to shape them into who God wants them to be.

How often do we as the church feel like a ragtag group of misfits?

And yet God takes us and he works in us and he preps us and he calls us mighty man of valor, mighty woman of valor.

Not because we are in the moment, but because he knows that's what he is going to make us to be.

Because that's how he works.

That's the God whom we serve.

Paul said it this way He said, I am confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.

That's what Paul says in the New Testament to the church at Philippi.

I know this to be true.

That the same God that began the work in you, he's not finished.

He's not finished.

In spite of our fearfulness, in spite of our failure, Jesus has brought us redemption and forgiveness and cleansing.

And gang, we need that work of Jesus Christ in our lives every bit as much today as the day we first came to him.

But he promises that he'll never leave us, he'll never forsake us, he's going to continue that work.

And I encourage you, you that may be visiting, but particularly you that are a part of this ministry, the road.

God has a plan and a purpose for this ministry in this community for this time.

And you may feel like some days, oh man, I could never be a part of, I don't have the level of spirituality of, you know, this person or that person.

You might be surprised at this person or that person's level of spirituality in the first place.

It's easy to project something that maybe we don't always have because we're all in process together.

All of us.

We have differing gifts, different positions within the body of Christ.

But a person who sits up here and teaches the word, and I know your pastor agrees with this, is not so head and shoulders above and beyond everyone else's spirituality.

It is a particular calling.

But every single one of us has gifts and callings God wants to bring to the table and utilize so that the body functions together the way God intends.

I encourage you, don't let fear hold you back.

Courage is not the absence of fear.

Courage is standing up in spite of the fear.

Courage is moving forward in spite of the fear.

Courage is stepping out in the plan of God in spite of the fear.

If you feel like super chicken, that's okay.

Step out in spite of the fear and watch what God does as His Spirit fills us and leads us and moves through us.

Father, I pray for this congregation of people.

I pray that you would encourage them and utilize their lives for your glory.

Lord, until that day that we all stand around your throne together.

Roadsters and lighthouses together.

And every other community within this front range area that knows you and loves you and worships you, and we will stand before your throne together and give you praise for the work that you do in taking lives like ours, putting us back together and using us that we might accomplish your purposes.

Father, I also pray if there is anyone here tonight that has not taken that opportunity for the first time to acknowledge their own sin and look to Calvary so that their sin can be forgiven, that right now, in the stillness of their heart, that would be taking place.

That your spirit would move upon their lives sovereignly to draw them to yourself, that they would understand their need for forgiveness and the reality that it is provided through the sacrifice that Jesus made on that cross, and that right now they would turn to you in faith.

And then, Father, that all of us together would march forward.

In faith, trusting you.

God, we thank you for loving us.

We thank you for calling us your children.

In Jesus' name we pray.

And all God's people said, Amen.

Let's worship.