God Box Pt 3 - Indicators I'm Ready

Come on.

Wow.

It's like coming up after the Christian version of a U2 concert.

That's awesome.

That was awesome.

Give them a hand for ladeness.

That was.

You probably agree with me.

I think we could uh choose upsides and go home and be very, very good for it.

And at the same time, I know that God is just setting the table for us to take a peek at his word and really challenge our hearts this morning.

If if you haven't been here the last couple weeks, we're looking at a concept that as we approach God, we tend to grab enough of God and intellectually agree with parts and pieces and go, okay, God, this makes sense and even experience.

Some of us have experienced where we've invited God into our lives to forgive our sins and experience that celebration.

But even from that point forward, what we tend to do is we start taking God and we we kind of box Him in.

We kind of take this box and say, okay, God, this is what I get, this is what I like, this is what I don't understand, but I'm still okay with that.

We put God in this box and we get there.

And God's desire for our lives is to literally obliterate our box and to say, I've got something bigger, better, and stronger, faster than you can even comprehend.

And I want you to experience that.

The reason why the Christian faith has spanned thousands of years is not because people read a really good book about rules that go, ooh, those are good rules, we'll we'll try that.

It's because we have literally experienced God in reality.

That's why it's lasted, that's why it's progressed.

And if you and I will personally say, you know what, God, okay.

I want to see you outside my box.

What does that look like?

And there's gonna be opportunities for that in every one of our lives.

Sometimes it comes through needs.

Where we have a need, maybe it's relational or financial or vocational, and we literally cry out, God, I don't know, realize where I am, I don't understand why I'm here.

Help.

Help me.

Do you not care?

Help.

Sometimes it comes out of that cry and plea.

Sometimes it comes out of our experience where we're seeing life and we see an injustice or we see a need, and we actually think, Why is that so?

Why doesn't somebody do something about that?

And we think, well, I'm not big enough, strong enough, I don't have the resources, but somebody ought to do something about that.

And that could very well be that opportunity that God is longing for.

Let me see if I can set the table with an example of what I'm learning.

Now, I travel all over the country, probably fly over a hundred flights a year.

But in the past few years, I've had the opportunity to actually fly on a private plane, which is a totally different experience.

And then I had the opportunity on a few occasions to actually sit up front and in the co-pilot seat.

And I'll never forget one of the first times I did this, a friend of mine said, I wasn't going to be able to make an event unless I flew privately.

And he said, Hey, I've got a plane, you pay for the gas, I'll fly you up there.

I'm like, deal.

So I show up at McCullum and uh he wings up.

I I love, I love these airs.

This is my favorite part of flying that way.

You park your car, you walk about 30 steps, and you get on a plane.

There's no security, there's no turn off your cell phone, you just throw your stuff in the back and you go.

And I love that.

And I get in the seat, and we're taxiing out, and I'm just like, I love the front.

I'm like a kid in a candy store.

I'm like, whoa, I'm in the front window.

This is so awesome.

And he's talking, and he's like, hey, let me give you first lesson.

He's like, you know, okay, there's a thing called the six-pack, and these are the main six instruments, and everything else, a little bit superfluous, but they all come off of these six, and these are the most important ones.

And he's talking through these, I'm like, okay, six-pack, yeah, right on.

Yeah, this is gonna fly and this is awesome.

And we get to the end of the runway, he's like, okay, are you ready to take off?

And I'm like, yeah, he goes, Okay, well, here's what you're gonna do.

The brakes are gonna be down, and you're gonna do this, this, this, and this.

I'm like, yes, we are, and I'm like, he's like, okay, go ahead.

And I'm like, what are you talking about?

He's like, well, I just explained it to you.

And you know that there's times where we're listening to hear words, and then there's times where we we listen because we're gonna have to do something.

You realize that difference?

Well, I was listening to hear words, and he was explaining for me to do it, and he's like, No, really, it's easy.

And I'm thinking, no, it's easy if you know what you're doing and you've done it before.

And he goes, Well, here it is, let me put your hand on it.

So he puts my hand, and we're starting to roll.

And I'm like, well, okay.

And he says, Well, let me just give you a crash course real quick.

And I'm like, I don't like the word crash course when we're flying.

That's not a good option.

And and and we start going, he's like, okay, your airspeed needs to be a little more.

Push this down.

I'm like, okay, push one, okay, this is it.

And we start coming off.

I'm like, okay, do I pull back?

Do I push forward?

And he's like, just let it take off, and then you push forward a little bit.

I'm just, I mean, I'm in chaos mode.

And I was under the delusion at some point in my life, I thought, you know, it'd be so great to just have my own plane.

That way I can just leave whenever I want.

I can fly there, I can get my own plane, I can fly home.

That would be so great.

Until I actually had to fly a plane.

And he let me take off.

He's like, okay, well, what you got to look at now?

And now I'm locked into the fact he is not telling me these pieces of information just to let me know them.

He's like, here's what you got to look at.

All of a sudden I'm locked in on these six different instruments.

These are the indicators if you're going to live or die.

And I'm locked in, and I'm like, okay, those go okay.

He's like, okay, watch a chim do this.

He says, the rule of thumb is make small adjustments so you don't make big mistakes.

And I'm like, okay, got it.

Small adjustments, and I'm, and if you've ever been in a how many of you have ever flown in a plane smaller than like eight seats?

Anybody, okay.

Oh gosh, you know this then.

Because the plane, in a big plane, you got turbulence.

Uh that was turbulence.

Oh, it's turbulence.

Small planes, normally you're just going like this the whole time.

You're just, it's like a butterfly, and you're just, and I am just, I am just locked in, and I'm I'm looking at the indicators, and and we're about, I don't know, 45 minutes into the flight.

And he's like, How you doing?

I'm like, I'm good.

Okay, this one's okay, we're good, we're good, we're good.

And he's like, you know, every now and then you need to look up.

And I was like, okay, okay, okay, yeah, okay.

I'm telling you, by the time we landed, I was exhausted.

Now, fortunately, he landed the plane, but I'm just like, I couldn't do this.

I'd be a nervous wreck.

Because I had never flown.

I have flown in a plane, but I'd never flown a plane.

And in that same experiential feeling, I want you to feel that for just a moment because when God moves in our lives personally, there will come a time where we move from life and hearing and knowing the truth to where God says, okay, time to take off.

And then we get the gravity of the situation that we're taking off.

And he's right there, and he's with us, and he's going to carry us through it, and that, but we realize God's saying, No, you know what?

I want you to take off because I want to obliterate the box you've put me in.

And I want you to experience a little bit more of who I really am.

Now, those indicators on that plane, they call it the six-pack.

There are three indicators that I've noticed in this one story in Judges chapters six and seven of a gentleman in a story that we've probably, if you've been in the church anytime, you've probably heard the story, but there are three key indicators.

So that if you and I are saying, hmm, I wonder, I wonder if this is the time where God wants to obliterate my box.

I wonder if God is calling me to get outside of the box I've made for him.

I wonder if that's it.

Today is the indicators that we can know from his truth that this is when God is indicating he is moving and we need to change.

These are the indicators, and it's found in chapters six and seven.

The first one I want us to look at is the fact that they that I mentioned before, and that is, do I am I crying out?

Let me give the background here real quick.

In chapter six, verse one, it said, Again, the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites.

And basically, this huge army of people from the east, they come in and they take over everything.

Because Israel just decided, you know what, God, we like you, but we're gonna like a lot of other stuff too.

We're gonna worship a lot of other stuff.

You're just one of the gods.

And God's like, okay, you want to go that road again, I'll let you go that road again.

So they're taken over completely, and they're in this misery.

Literally, every time they plant a crop, some of these, and it says later in chapter six that they were countless.

The number of men and camels were countless.

We there's just so many of them.

They say, every time we plant a crop, they swoop in, they let us plant it and get it, and then they come in and take it.

And anytime we have donkeys or sheep or whatever, they come in and they take them and slaughter them, and it's just we we can't get anything done.

In verse six of chapter six, this is Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help.

Okay, so there's the concept of either a need or an injustice, or a point where we're uncomfortable going, God, help.

How do we know that God is going to use me in that way?

So slip down to verse 11.

And this is one of my favorites, probably one of the people I can relate to most in Scripture is this guy in this story.

Verse 11.

The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Oprah.

That belonged to Joash the Abizarite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a wine press to keep it from the Midianites.

Don't miss this.

Why would you thresh wheat at a winepress?

Think about that for just a second.

Why?

Because every time they threshed it in the threshing room, the Midianites would come in and take it.

They'd let them do the work and they'd steal it.

So he's off at a wine press, which wasn't that season, so he's there just trying to hide and thresh some wheat real fast so they can make a loaf of bread.

So that's where he is.

When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.

And he probably said it even more boisterous than that.

It was just boom, he is with you, mighty warrior.

And I love Gideon's reply.

Look how he replies.

Um, but sir, if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?

Were all his wonders that our fathers told us about when he said, Where are they?

Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?

But now the Lord has abandoned us and put us into the hand of the Midianites, or in Midian.

Look at what he says, the Lord is with you, mighty warrior.

Um, well, why are we here and done this to us, us?

Do you see the pronoun shift there?

Why is it happening to us?

And the Lord turned to him and said, Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand.

Am I not sending you?

And I love his look going, what do you mean?

And look at verse 15.

But, Lord, Gideon asked, how can I save Israel?

My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, which is the weakest, and I am the least in my family.

I Lord, I don't want to question you here, but you go to the strongest, and I'm the weakest in my family, which is the weakest family in the tribe, which is the weakest tribe, and the whole lot of them.

You you missed.

I I hate to explain it to you this way, but you picked the wrong guy.

And don't miss this indicator.

The indicator is simply this: if we see a need, if we're through an experience and we think we can't do this, and we literally feel inadequate, that is a good indicator that God is about to obliterate our box.

If we are looking at our circumstances, we are looking at an injustice or a need, and we think, well, somebody ought to do something about that.

I couldn't because I don't have it.

There's no way I am adequate or prepared or have the resume to do that.

That is a great indicator that God is about to move in and through us.

That indicator is saying, hey, and and as I've looked in my life and my friends and those around me, I realize I see this pattern over and over and over.

I shared for a couple weeks about my friends Donald and Christy that are in Costa Rica now.

And I'll never forget the time that he came back and he said, Ken, I'm sitting on a beach, I'm in a country I've never been to, I don't speak the language, and I'm sitting there evaluating on this beach after three days of not talking to a soul, going, God, I've missed it.

I've missed it.

I'm not a pastor, I'm not a missionary, I'm not a choir director, I've never been to seminary, I own a landscaping company.

I've missed it.

I am not adequate, I don't have anything to do what I feel needs done here.

And then God said, Perfect.

Now you're ready.

Because when we feel adequate, we start relying on his complete power and we become dependent.

He says, I need you to be inadequate.

I want you to feel that.

And if and when we feel inadequate, that is when God moves.

I will not forget.

This past week I had the joy of getting to play golf with Steve, our lead pastor here.

And I'll never forget what he had shared.

And he was telling my other friend about how his hand started.

And he said, you know, we had just kind of sold this business and we're moving.

And he said, I I even hesitated, even mentioned to Susan.

I just, can I tell you something crazy?

And she said, sure.

And he goes, I think God might want us to start a church.

And he said, she cried.

And and he said, Oh, great, now I've really missed it because we we don't we don't know what to do.

We don't know how to do this.

And she said, That's exactly what God's been laying on my heart.

And in that inadequacy, they said, but we we don't know what to do other than God help.

And they moved, and this is the result, and God is moving incredible.

And I see that in my life.

The greatest transformations in my life have come when I've got to the point of being utterly inadequate, going, God, when I got out of debt, they say put all your information, all your financial situation on a piece of paper.

And I looked, I'm like, there's no way in this lifetime that that's gonna happen.

So, God, I pray that the rapture would happen soon because it's just not there.

I can't, I can't get there.

And in that inadequacy, God began to show and move.

And out of that, that's one of those in out of that feeling of inadequacy, and then look down in chapter 6, verses 22 and 24.

Make sure I'm on the right page and not going backwards.

26 and tw I'm sorry, yes.

Verses 22, chapter 6, verses 22 through 24.

When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the Lord, he exclaimed, Oh, Sovereign Lord, I have seen an angel of the Lord face to face.

But the Lord said to him, Peace, don't be afraid, you are not going to die.

In other words, I've seen God's face, and I've heard that if you see God face to face, you die instantly.

He says, So Gideon built an altar to the Lord and called it the Lord is peace.

To this day it stands in Ophrah and the Aberzarites.

And he says, You know what?

I realize the second indicator is that when we sense that we are getting, and God is getting more intimate.

We begin to relate to God more intimately.

We realize this is an indicator that God is moving in an incredible way.

To say, you know what?

Well, Lord, I I sense you're right here with me.

My circumstance hasn't changed.

I'm still overwhelmed, I'm still inadequate, but I begin to relate to God more intimately.

And in that intimacy, the third indicator happens.

And that is we see something that we step, a take, a step to take, an action to make, something to do.

And we usually look at it going, well, that that doesn't solve the problem, but it's just a step.

And the third indicator is that we respond obediently.

We respond obediently, even if we don't understand it.

And look at this, this is one of my favorite parts of the whole story, verses 25 through 27.

Look at this.

In the same night the Lord said to him, Take the second bull from your father's herd, and one seven years old, tear down your father's altars to Baal, and cut down the ashera pole.

In other words, let's let we're not doing any compromising anymore.

We're cutting it down.

Then build a proper kind of altar to the Lord your God on top of this height, using the wood from the ashera pole that you cut down.

Offer the second bull as a burnt offering.

And I I love how real he is.

Look at verse 27.

So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord told them.

But then look at this next sentence, my favorite.

But because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town, he did it at night rather than the daytime.

You know what, Lord, I'm gonna be obedient, but I am scared spitless.

People are gonna be ticked off.

They are not gonna understand.

I want to bring this into today's society.

What if we took a stand so boldly and said, you know what, I'm not messing around anymore.

There's an injustice, I'm gonna call it an injustice, there's a need, I'm gonna do something.

People are gonna start saying, Who are you?

What is your resume?

What do you have to do for that?

You don't who are you?

Well, um, um, nobody really.

I but and my best friend is God, and He told me to do it.

Well, what why is your God any better than any other gods?

Why is your God any better than them?

Why why all gods are equal and we'll just call them by a different name?

No, that's not really true.

If you go this far below the level of any surface of any faith, you'll see that God, the God that I serve, is real, and all the others are just kind of religious figures.

And I'm gonna trust God in this.

And I love what happened next.

You can go back and read it, but if you if you go down, you'll see the next morning people get up, and it was the high place, and they're like, hey, hey! Who tore down the altar of Baal?

Who tore down the ashra?

Who did that?

We gotta find them and kill them.

And the word got out, one of the servants probably leaked it that it was Gideon, and they come to his house, and they're like, hey, bring out your boy Gideon, we're killing him.

He tore down the altars of Baal and his dad, can you imagine Gideon at that point just going, man, my dad's gonna just be so mad?

And I'm dead, I'm dead.

Lord, I'm coming to meet you because I'm dead.

And and his dad, he says, Really?

You what what happened?

Tore down the altar of Baal.

Really?

Baal, he's a God, and yet you gotta come defend him.

If if Baal's a real God, then let him defend himself.

And he goes, and you can just kind of see Gideon in the corner going, yeah, okay, God, yeah.

And he starts to see it and feel it and go, you know what, Lord?

I responded obediently.

And then God calls him to the next level.

And this is the part of the story where we see it.

And you see these circles.

Okay, I'm feeling inadequate, and then I relate more intimately, and then I act obediently, and these circles are not separate, they're concentric, and we see them going because after he acts, after he acts obediently, he goes back and gets even more intimate with God in verse 36 and 39, because God says, I'm gonna deliver Israel through you.

And he's like, Me, okay, Lord, I okay, what we just did was cool, but deliver Israel?

That's okay, God, if really, if this is it, then look at verse 36.

Gideon said to God, If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised, look, I love that he has to tell God to look.

I just love that.

Look, um, I'm gonna place a wool fleece on the threshing floor.

If the dew is only on the fleece and not on the ground, then I will know that you're gonna save Israel by my hand, as you said.

So he lays it out.

Okay, dew's only on the fleece, and he wakes up the next morning and there's no dew anywhere except the fleece.

And he rings it out, and there's a barrel of water, and he's like, Okay, Lord.

Um, okay, one more thing.

Um okay, that was really cool, but just so I can know that it's you.

Tomorrow, when I wake up, if like all the grass is wet, but the fleece is dry, then I'll know for sure.

And see what I love.

I love this.

Don't miss the progression.

When we take an obedient step, God does not view our inadequacy and our doubting ourselves.

He views it as us building intimacy with him, not doubting him.

And I dare any of us to say, oh, yeah, I believe that God wants to deliver the United States.

States of America through me, and not question God's direction there.

And he lays out the fleece and he goes, Okay, Lord, I'm in it.

So he's gone from obedience back to intimacy back to, and I love this, look at verse 2 in chapter 7.

And the Lord said to Gideon, and they're getting them together.

He's like, Okay, Lord, I got it.

The fleeces were dry and wet, and I'm gonna call everybody.

He's like, God, God's gonna deliver Israel out of the hands of the Midianites.

So they all get together, and there's 32,000 dudes there.

32,000 men show up, and you gotta think Gideon's going, okay, we're still way outnumbered.

They're countless, but 32.

Okay, this is an encouragement, and then verse 2 happens.

The Lord said to Gideon, You uh you have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands.

Uh, in order for Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her.

You got too many people.

Now, I don't know if he said it, but I'm thinking Gideon's going, Lord, um I don't think you understand the way this whole war thing works.

They've got camels and chariots, and they've got more people, and we got 32,000.

That's the best we got.

And so he says, Okay, here's what you're gonna do.

And again, I love this.

He's like, go to the 32,000.

And they're up and they can see the masses of people, and for seven years they've been just plundered by these people.

Plundered by them, more than they could count, overwhelmed, hundreds to one, and they're just oh, run away, run away, they're taking our food, don't matter, run away, or they're gonna kill us.

And they run away.

And he says, Okay, if any of you are scared, then you can go home.

Good, they're gone.

If any of you are scared, 22,000 of them said, Yeah, I'm scared.

I'm out of here.

And he's left with 10.

10,000 guys.

And here, again, cool, from last week.

If you looked at last week, when Deborah and Barak, God called them and they took over and they got back and Israel was saved.

Do you remember how many men he did it with?

10,000.

10,000.

And Gideon was either a young man or a child at that time.

He would have remembered when God delivered them.

He may have even been one of the 10,000.

And so he's probably sitting there, okay, Lord, I get it.

10,000, I get it.

There's 10.

You did it then, you did 10,000, that's the number.

Oh, okay, now I'm excited.

And then God just kind of says, nope.

And we get to verses four in chapter seven.

But the Lord said again, Ah, still too many men.

Take them down to the water.

I will shift them for you there.

I say, if you go with them, and he shall go.

But if I say, This one shall not go with you, then he shall not go.

And he has them drink, and now he gets down to verse seven.

And the Lord said to Gideon, with the three hundred that lapped, I will save you, and give the Midianites into your hand.

Let all the other men go, each one to his own place.

I need three hundred.

That's it.

Three hundred.

And now Gideon says, Okay, and he's obedient with that point to say, Okay, we're down to three hundred.

I gotta think, and here's the feeling if I can, I'm not gonna do this feeling adequate, but when we get intimate with God and we start to lay out the fleece and we start to go through the process, we will be overwhelmed.

We will feel inadequate.

There will come a point where we will literally feel I would rather die with God than live without Him.

I would rather fail miserably and everybody in the world look at me and go, what a joke, what a loser, and know that I was obedient as I could be with God than to be comfortable and insignificant having missed God's plan for my life.

It will happen.

In that moment, I encourage you, put a star by these two chapters.

Come back and live in these two chapters during that time.

Because during that time, we will go, God, I need you.

And God longs for us to get more intimate and say, you know what?

Lord, if I have to go hungry, I'll do it.

I'll never forget when I left the corporate world and I started pursuing what I'm doing now, and for two and a half years, circumstantially, it did not look good.

And I'll never forget the time I literally got down to where I had zero food, zero money.

And it was gonna be a couple days before I had anything even hopefully coming in again.

I said, Lord, I'm at the bottom.

I I must have missed it.

I must have just missed it.

But Lord, I'm hungry, and if I have to fast for a few days, then that's fine, because I would rather know I at least tried to seek you and missed than never tried at all.

And God began to just show me, and some circumstances came up and some opportunities, but I got to that point, and I guarantee you, if we'll take that obedient step, there's a good chance we're gonna get where Gideon was.

And with the 300, that's where he was going, really?

We're now outnumbered so many to one, I can't even count it.

But Lord, I now feel completely inadequate.

And I'd rather die with you than live without you.

And they get to it, and their obedience step is next.

Look in 7, 3.

He announces now to the people anyone who trembles and fears, you go home.

They went home, they lapped up the water, and the other ones went home.

Now he's down to 300.

And look what happens in verses 9 through 11.

He's with the 300.

Get up, go down against the camp, because I am going to give them into your hand.

If you are afraid to attack, and I can just see you getting going, yeah.

Go down to the camp with your servant Pura and listen to what they are saying.

Afterward you will be encouraged to attack the camp.

So he and Pura, his servant, went down to the outpost of the camp.

It was at night.

And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the other eastern people had settled into the valley, thick as locusts.

Their camels could no more be counted than the sand of the seashores.

That's just the camels.

And Gideon arrived just as the men were telling a friend of a dream.

I had a dream, he was saying.

A round loaf of barley bread came in, tumbling into the Midianite camp.

It struck the tent with such force that the tents overturned and collapsed.

And his friend responded, This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon, son of Joash, the Israelite.

God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hand.

That's what his enemies are saying.

What did they see?

I don't know.

What did God do?

I don't know.

But I know this that he was obedient to say, okay, God, I'm gonna do that.

The question I have for you and I this morning is really twofold.

Do we really want to see God move outside our box?

Then ask a couple questions.

God, what area of life do I see an injustice or a need?

Or what area of life right now do I feel completely inadequate?

Because there's a good chance that's the place God wants to explode the box we've built.

Or maybe it's one where we say, Lord, I want to get intimate with you.

I'm crying out for help in this area, or God, I just I see an injustice, and I've always thought somebody ought to do something about that.

God, what what do you want to do?

And do you want to use me in some way?

Or maybe it is, and I almost sense in a very real, a small minority here this morning, God has laid something on your heart, and He showed a step to take, and you've either convinced yourself, well, what good would that do?

Or that that's that's not enough.

Where God is just saying, just take the step.

Because these these indicators are concentric.

What is God indicating to you this morning?

Or maybe it's to take that step, and maybe you're one here who said, you know what, I've never known a God that is that personal.

Let him in.

Because it's only when we invite him in to forgive us of our faults and show us who he made us to be that we can start discovering what he's meant us for.

Every one of us was meant for a reason.

So let me close in a word of prayer, and the missus musicians are gonna come.

We're gonna just close in a song, but let God penetrate your heart this morning with that way if you want to see him work outside the box we've built.

Father, thank you for this morning.

Thank you for this incredible gift of a story in the history of you, or my friend Gideon, who felt completely inadequate, and you just built on that inadequacy to prove the intimacy that you long to have with us.

And even then, you give us a choice whether we're gonna be obedient or not.

But Lord, it's through those simple indicators that we can see you move outside the box we built for you.

So, Lord, move in that way.

And I thank you for teaching us this this morning.

And it is only through Christ and the power of your spirit that that one Israel that moves in us that we pray.

Amen.

God bless you guys.

Thanks for letting me share.