Judges: Strength in Weakness

And it's Memorial Day.

Happy Memorial Day.

I always like to congratulate people who come to church on Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend.

Always feels I just like to know that there's other people with me when I show up.

That's nice.

And so, congratulations, good for you.

We'll put some extra credit in the church role.

We don't really have a church role, but if we did, I'll give you a little extra credit.

Great job.

And what we do want to say is we do want to remember.

We want to remember people who have served in our military, armed forces.

We sit here on a legacy.

We sit here on a legacy of sacrifice of people who have fought and earned and continue to fight and defend our liberty.

And so if that is you, if you did that, or you're a family member and you had a family member who did that, we just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

And we want to pause and we want to pray.

This is a prayer taken out of the book of common prayer that many churches will be praying this morning.

So let's let's pray together, um thinking about Memorial Day, and those of us around us that have served for our own liberty.

Let's pray together.

O Judge of the nations, we remember before you with grateful hearts the men and women of our country who in the day of decision ventured much for the liberties we now enjoy.

Grant that we may not rest until all the people of this land share the benefits of true freedom and gladly accept its disciplines.

This we ask in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

So we are continuing in the book of Judges.

This morning, as we're in Judges 7, it's an incredibly helpful story to us.

In some ways, we're gonna read it here, a lot of us, and it can kind of feel like really challenging or awful news to a certain extent, but it's actually how faith and breakthrough work in life.

And because of that, it's actually really, really good news, although it's gonna be challenging to many of us.

Our scripture reading, uh jumping off, there's two kind of large chunks of reading that we need to do to make our way through this chapter.

Uh the first one is Judges 7, 2 through 8.

The Lord said to Gideon, The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, My own hand has saved me.

Now therefore proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home and hurry away from Mount Gilead.

Then twenty two thousand of the people returned, and ten thousand remained.

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

Take them down to the water, and I will test them for you there, and any one of whom I say to you, this one shall go with you, shall go with you, and anyone whom I say to you, this one shall not go with you, shall not go.

So he brought the people down to the water, and the Lord said to Gideon, Everyone who laps the water with his tongue as a dog laps, you shall set by himself.

Likewise, everyone who kneels down to drink.

And the number of those who lapped put their hands to their mouths was three hundred men.

But all the rest of the people knelt down to drink water.

And the Lord said to Gideon, With the three hundred men who lapped, I will save you, and give the Midianites into your hand, and let all the others go, every man to his home.

So the people took provisions in their hands and their trumpets, and he sent all the rest of Israel, every man to his tent, but retained the three hundred men, and the camp of Midian was below him in the valley.

The word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

So growing up, my favorite tennis player was Andre Agassi.

I don't know if you remember Andre Agassi.

Here's a picture of Andre Agassiz.

So this was like early 90s, 1990, and he came up.

This was this was cool.

Okay, can we just say that?

If you remember it, this was really cool.

I think I had his shoes, I think I had a couple of his shirts.

This was, he came on the scene about he was like 18, 19 years old, and he came on the scene of being a professional tennis player into like a really stuffy tennis environment and culture, and he broke out, he was like the rebel, and he wore black and neon colors.

He I mean he was he was so cool.

I mean, he had it going on.

So one day he shows up, Cannon, he was he was Canon was one of his big sponsors.

He shows up to a commercial shoot with Cannon, and he gets there and he shows up and he sits down and they dress him and they tell him what to say.

And the the line is, and maybe you remember it because this has become sort of an iconic advertising campaign.

I mean, to the point that Michael Scott quotes it in off the office, season two, episode four, just in case you're wondering if you're not familiar with that.

Image is everything.

Do you remember that?

Image is everything.

Or maybe you've heard it, right?

Like it's become just something that we say over and over again.

And he was the image, Agassiz.

He was the image of like young, successful, cool.

I mean, he had it going on.

I mean, he he was the guy.

He ran around celebrities, he married a model.

I mean, like he had it.

One problem, he wasn't happy.

Big problem in the whole equation of things, right?

And his hair's falling out.

That's the other problem.

And that was a big deal because he had that beautiful, right?

You saw that beautiful hair.

He had that beautiful long hair.

And every morning he was he was waking up and like more hair was on the pillow.

Like he says it was like his identity was laying on the pillow.

Anyone?

You lost your hair, you know about that, right?

I got a little spot right here.

I'm just kind of watching it.

I'm telling you guys, y'all don't see it because I'm so tall, so I'm gonna make it a little bit longer.

But I know, I know.

So he begins to wear a toupee.

He wears a toupee, he wears a weave, he gets all this going on.

Nobody, nobody knows.

And it's the night before the 1990 French Open.

He's in the shower and the weave starts to come out.

Right?

And he's about to be on global television, one of the biggest, biggest tournaments in the entire world.

So he and his brother frantically try to like pin it back together.

They get a bandana, they try to get it tied, just perfect.

And here's what Agassiz writes in his autobiography, Open.

Of course I could have played without my hair piece, but what would all the journalists have written if they knew that all the time I was wearing, really wearing a wig?

During the warming up training before I before played, I prayed, not for victory, but that my hair piece would not fall off.

With each leap, I imagine it falling to the sand.

I imagine it millions of spectators move closer to their TV sets, their eyes widening, and in dozens of dialects and languages ask how Andre Agassi's hair has fallen from his head.

So of course he lost the match.

Like to a guy that he should have wiped off the court.

And then afterward, after losing the match, his wife suggests to him, why don't you shave it?

Just shave your head.

Just be done with it.

And so he takes a few days to sort of like contemplate this like possibility of going from long hair, images, everything, and being done with it.

Here's what he says.

It was like suggesting I should have all my teeth out.

Nevertheless, I thought for a few days about it, about the agonies that caused me, the hypocrisy and lies.

Okay, then he goes on, he shaves it.

Here's what he says: A stranger stood before me in the mirror and smiled.

My wig was like a chain, and the ridiculously long strands and three colors like an iron ball which hung on it.

So what he's talking about, that's such a perfect imagery for this passage.

I mean, we wouldn't always like put these side by side, but it really is because it's speaking about embracing our weakness.

See, pretending to be strong all the time, like needing the 32,000 men.

Pretending to think that that's going to be the way forward.

That's exhausting.

Like pretending to be strong is exhausting because you're not always strong.

That's why.

Our bodies are failing.

We are getting older.

If you're really young, you will get older.

We're not morally perfect.

Our motives are not always pure.

We don't always have it together.

Here's the good news.

That's a lot of bad news.

Here's the good news.

The good news is the Bible is not obsessed with like really strong put-together people.

And that's incredibly good news.

God actually calls us to face and feel and confess our weaknesses.

I mean, let's just review Judges 6.

Last week, Judges 6.

Judges 6, 2 through 6 is about Israel's total helplessness.

Judges 6, 15 is about Israel's obscurity.

Now the hero comes in.

Here's the hero.

Gideon.

Judges 6, 27.

It's about Gideon's fear.

Judges 6, 26 through 40 is just overall about Gideon's need for additional encouragement after being called.

So our first point is this God draws us toward our weakness to welcome and change us in his strength.

See that's the way that there's breakthrough.

The way that there's breakthrough is in facing feeling and confessing weakness.

Judges 7 begins with Gideon's gathered together 32,000 men to fight a battle against these Midianites who've been stealing.

Remember last week we talked about they've been stealing their food, raiding their land.

So he has called together.

He's got 32,000 men at the spring of Herod.

So you'd be feeling pretty good about yourself.

Be feeling pretty good.

Not bad.

32,000.

See, this is also the difference between like religion and gospel being played out right here because religion says you have 32,000 men, now go and fight the battle all by yourself.

Pat yourself on the back, God will love you.

Gospel says, no, no, no, God comes down the mountain into your weakness, into your 300 men, and fights the battle for you.

And that's the story we get.

And that's what God is trying to tell in this story.

Right?

I mean, can you imagine?

You're sitting there with 32,000 men.

And then the story is that God cuts it down to 10,000 men?

I mean, in one moment?

I mean, can you imagine the words that are starting to come out of your mouth in that moment that now you have to go into a battle with less resources?

I mean, just fill in the blank for what your battle is.

I don't know what your battle is.

It's the thing that feels impossible.

That's what it is.

Just the thing that feels overwhelming.

The thing that feels so exhausting.

The part of you that's so condemning.

Go into that with enough resources, you're feeling pretty good.

Now let's just get rid of those resources down to 10,000 men.

I mean, come on.

Like, why?

Now let's just cut it to 300 men.

I don't even know what the percentage is on that.

Like, I think it's less than 1%.

I didn't do the math.

It's horrible, right?

Like, like, what a cut.

Like, I want increase to go into something difficult, not decrease.

And God is in this situation decreasing.

The reason is that, like, he's on a mission within a mission.

And this leads us into the next point.

In our weakness, we are opened.

And here's the mission within the mission.

This is what this story is really about.

In our weakness, we are open to God's strength and peace beyond our resources.

The point of facing and feeling, confessing our weaknesses, our sin, our shame, our woundedness, dealing with all of that.

The point of that is to be in greater relationship with the Heavenly Father.

Now you can pretend to be strong for a really long period of time.

Some of us can do it for 20 years, some of you are going to do it for 40 years, but there's going to be a point where you burn out and break down.

And now you'll have to face your weakness.

And that's where you need a relationship with the Heavenly Father.

You needed it a whole time, but that's going to be the point where you finally break.

In the 14th century, a lady named Julian, she lived in Norwich, England.

So at the time, 14th century, this was the Hundred Years' War was going on, the black plague, black death pandemic had come through.

One third of the population of her town died.

Okay, let's just think about our last year.

Not even close.

Okay, like this was COVID without hospitals and without modern science.

A third of the people she knew died.

Just take out a third of all the people you know, your family, your friends, your community, your neighborhood, a third gone.

And here's what she writes This vision of the cross was shown me to teach me as I understand it that it is necessary for everyone to feel in this way.

Sometimes to be comforted, and sometimes to feel failure and be left to oneself.

God wants us to know that He keeps us equally safe in joy and in sorrow and loves us as much in sorrow as in joy.

And see, that's freedom.

That's the reality of the world, and that's freedom.

If God only loves us in joy, that's not a lot of freedom because there's a lot of days that aren't that.

But if we are as safe in sorrow as in joy, that's an incredible freedom that God is always with us.

Now remember, Jesus said, right?

He said that he came for sinners, for the weak.

Not because there are weak people who need Jesus, and then there's strong people who don't need Jesus.

That's not why he said that.

He said that because there are people who realize there are weak.

And then there's those who are still pretending they're strong.

Remember Paul, he's talking about his weakness.

Remember this?

I think we I think I referenced it last week, 2 Corinthians 12, 9.

He talks about his weakness.

He can't just give he can't get rid of this weakness.

It just stays there, right?

Like the impossibility thing in your life right now, right?

That thing you just thought about.

It just doesn't go away.

And here's how God responds to him.

And he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

Therefore I will boast.

This is how Paul responds to that truth.

Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly in my weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

So that word boast means to glorify or rejoice.

So he's gonna rejoice in his weakness.

That's crazy, right?

Like that's crazy.

That's the thing we ignore, stuff down, don't pay attention to, cover up, cope, whatever.

But now Paul says, I'm gonna rejoice in it.

Here's how Scotty Smith worded it this week on his prayer blog.

Boasting and weakness is freedom.

Posing and pretending are slavery.

Humility is the way up, and pride is the way down.

See, the more we come alive to Jesus' full sufficiency for us, the more aware we can become of our weakness.

And the more we can face our weakness, the more alive we can be to the love of God, and that's where we have breakthrough.

So God's not calling us into weakness and confession of sin to deal with all this, to make us utterly miserable.

He's calling us into this because we are already weak.

And by getting past performance and posing and pretending and moving into humility, this is the way of the cross, it's the way of faith, and it is the way of breakthrough and freedom.

Here's the next chunk of scripture for us to read.

Judges 7, 9 through 15.

That same night the Lord said to him, Arise, go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hand.

But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Pura, your servant, and you shall hear what they say, and afterwards your hand shall be strengthened to go down against the camp.

Then he went down with Pura his servant to the outposts of the armed men who were in the camp.

And the Midianites, the Malachites, and all the people of the east lay along the valley like locusts in abundance, and their camels were without number as the sand that is on the seashore in abundance.

When Gideon came, behold, a man was telling a dream to his comrade, and he said, Behold, I dreamed a dream.

And behold, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian, and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat.

And his comrade answered, This is no other than the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, the man of Israel.

God has given into his hand Midian and all the camp.

As soon as Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he worshiped.

He returned to the camp of Israel and said, Arise, for the Lord has given the host of Midian into your hand.

So if we catch verse 10 at the beginning of that passage, what I love about that is it says, But God, the Lord says to Gideon, but if you're afraid.

I actually love that because it's like he knows Gideon at this point.

Like he knows us at this point, but if you're afraid, it's like saying, Of course you're afraid.

You're gonna be afraid.

So I gotta stay in this relationship with you.

It's not like you're just gonna march and battle and conquer all these battles.

I'm gonna be with you in this, giving you encouragement all along the way.

God moves into Gideon's fear to create courage.

So for me, I think the gospel application for me, at least this week, what came to me is like as we move toward our weakness, and maybe that's when you feel anxious or moody, it could you could be feeling lonely or despondent or numb, guilty.

I mean, all these things.

These feelings of weaknesses in us.

We can ask, Lord, what am I afraid of?

What do I need to surrender?

So that would include what I need to confess.

And then you can play, Lord, Lord, help me.

Help me trust.

See, I I love the question that starts with what am I afraid of?

Because we're told that the Holy Spirit lives in us, and the fruit of the Holy Spirit is love.

Okay, we're also told that we're called to be people of love in the world.

And then we know that there's no fear and love, and then we're told that God is love.

So knowing all of that, like what's true and good, a good question is probably like, what am I afraid of?

Like, what can that reveal if I'm willing to go into that question?

Now, Gideon, he divides the 300 men into three parts.

Each man is given a trumpet and a jar with a torch in it.

They encircle the camp, and then on his call signal, they blow their trumpets, they smash their jars, and they yell out for the Lord and for Gideon.

So this is how they battle.

This is how they battle.

Just utterly ridiculous, really, if you think about it.

One hand's a trumpet, one hand's a torch.

No swords.

I mean, nothing of real warfare at all.

And all of Midian is thrown into chaos and they flee.

I mean, it doesn't make sense.

It doesn't make sense.

And that's the point.

Actually, the point was that it wouldn't make sense.

We were told that at the very beginning of the chapter.

Like, that's why it went from 32,000 to 10,000 to 300, right?

Is because the Lord was saying, hey, I want to make sure you understand when you go through a battle and you make it through.

Like, I am with you.

It's that I am with you, that I am your strength.

Like, you need to know this, Israel needs to know this, we need to know this today.

To close us, we think about verse 15 that Gideon's response was worship.

Point number three is this our response to God's faithfulness is gratitude and worship.

Last Sunday, Phil Mickelson won the PGA championship.

Anybody watched Phil win the PGA championship?

It was kind of a big deal.

None of you watched it, apparently it's just me.

Okay.

Anybody?

Okay, a few of you, thank you.

We can participate in that.

He's the oldest person to have ever won a major golf tournament.

That's why it was a big deal.

Even if you don't care about golf and you think it's super boring or whatever, I get it.

You know, it's a little slow.

You've got to be willing to take a nap during it at some point.

That's part of the process of watching golf, is taking a nap.

So he's coming down the back nine, him and Brooks Kepka.

Kepka's young, good looking, fit.

Like you're worrying about Phil.

A couple times Phil's walking up a hill and you're kind of like, uh, and but he like made it up.

And like Kepka has like a hurt knee, and you're still not worried about him, right?

That's what's going on here.

And they're going back and forth all the way, the back nine, and you're not quite sure.

And then sure enough, Phil hits like just a great approach shot onto the 18th green.

He has the two-putt to win.

Very clear, this is done.

This is over.

And the the fairway was just lined with people, just lined up with a crowd of people, and they just loved this.

They went nuts.

I mean, here's a picture because as soon as he hit the approach shot, it just the fairway filled with people.

That's him coming out of the crowd.

At one point, he was surrounded.

They loved this unthinkable moment happened, the old guy winning, right?

And they surrounded him.

They couldn't believe.

I mean, on some level, this was worship.

This was a guy that was untouchable, right?

You can't get around Phil.

He flies on private jets.

And I did a deep dive, okay?

He had a Gulf Stream 5.

He just sold it because he partners with VistaJet.

Okay, I deep dove into his jet ownership.

That's where I went this week.

So he surrounded, people just, they can't believe this.

I mean, they are hands are up, they're worshiping.

They can't believe it.

One moron tries to hug him.

Did y'all see that?

One moron thinks they that he can touch Phil.

And he goes in for a hug, and out of nowhere, a cop, just out of nowhere, this cop just tackles him, just takes him, takes him out.

Totally up.

And this is the difference between Phil and God.

This is the point.

There's many differences.

This is one.

Now, Phil went on to Tuput.

He got his trophy.

He's polite.

He always thumbs up, right?

That's what he does.

Because that way you don't have to really talk to anybody.

Just thumbs up all the way around the course.

Just thumbs up.

That's what he does.

And then he can let a cop, moron tries to hug you, you don't have to hug him back.

Let the cop just shed away, just keep walking, thumbs up.

That's what Phil does all the way up to the green, two-putt, get your trophy, get on your jet, and fly back to California.

Right?

That's what Phil does.

Nothing against Phil?

He's just a golfer.

But that is not what we see in somebody like Jesus, who stops for the weak, who speaks to the weak.

Every time a child, a prostitute, attacks a collector.

Somebody who does who just doesn't have anything, who's in need, who's going into a battle and can't, doesn't have the ability, doesn't have the resources.

Jesus' response is a stop.

And those people, all those people's response to that sort of love and acceptance is gratitude worship.

Because he didn't pass them by.

See, we're the frantic people, like on that fairway, like just looking for something to worship, like we'll worship Phil, worship our job, worship other people's, you know, affirmation of us, we'll worship anything.

And we're just looking for somebody to accept us.

Now the good news is, the good news is we don't have to look for all these kind of pretending ways of acceptance.

We actually have a deliverer, God Himself, who comes to us, who's faithful to us.

Yeah, we are Gideon.

We're more weak than we imagine.

We we keep returning into fear over and over again.

But what we see in this story is God being faithful to Gideon and to his people.

That Gideon and we are more loved than we could ever dare to dream.

And we know that in the cross of Christ.

We know it securely.

Jesus shows up into our weakness, he does not pass us by.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for this good news.

That we are reminded this morning again that your gospel is enough.

And that we can trust in it.

We have many fears that drive many of our behaviors that are sin, many of our behaviors that are coping.

And for all of that, we are we confess.

We confess.

We surrender.

We ask that your Holy Spirit in us would reveal even more the weakness that is in us, that we might know your strength.

We know we are created beautiful in your image.

And we know at the same time that we do not experience that in fullness because of our own sin.

And our hope and our faith is in your faithfulness to us.

That you just keep coming back and you pursue us greater than we are prone to wander.

Give us gratitude and give us increased worship.

That you are worthy of our hearts, that you are worthy of our lives.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.