All right.
Well, again, welcome.
I appreciate you being here this morning.
I'm excited to get back into, the book of judges.
We're going to chapter by chapter,
through the book of judges,
though it's an historical book
about the God's people, who going into the promised Land
and taking possession of it and learning how to enjoy it?
it still is very, very relevant,
very, spiritual and practical lessons for us as well.
And so, I'm excited to that we have the opportunity
to open up the Bible, that the Bible is, is I don't know if
if you have as much fun with the Bible as I have.
but it is a lot of fun,
to read it, to understand,
what God is saying to us in the the nuances behind it.
Everything God wants to say is very, very plain.
but there are multiple levels to it as well.
Someone said this, that the Bible is,
is is. So,
the truth of God and,
revealed in Scripture is so shallow a child can play in it
and so deep, and else it can drown in it like, it's just it's just it's beautiful.
And so I appreciate the fact that we gather together on a weekly basis,
to unpack it last week, I went through most of chapter
six of judges and introduced you to a man named Gideon.
This week, I'm going to finish chapter six and do chapter seven.
There's the tail end of chapter six.
I didn't get to.
And for church folks who, who who've grown up in church with with,
with old Bible stories, Gideon will be somewhat familiar,
especially the last part of chapter six that I didn't talk about.
For those of you for whom it's not familiar.
I wanted to unpack it for you and give you some things I think that
you'll hopefully take with you, in the in the days that are coming,
as both an encouragement,
and a source of strength and hope and to build your faith.
So if you have a Bible and brought one with you, judges
six of every last thing that we'll look at is on the app.
You're welcome to turn there as well.
but judges six,
God has as led
his people into the Promised Land.
He's given it to them as his gift
that they gained by faith.
But it's by their faithfulness
that they will enjoy the promise that God gave.
And the same is true for us.
God gives us the promise of salvation that's gained by faith,
not by works.
But we enjoy God's gift of salvation by our faithfulness.
And in judges, as the people were not faithful,
they did not enjoy the promise and the gift of God.
Similarly,
if I call myself a Christian
but am not faithful in that relationship and my response to God in his love,
I will not enjoy the promises of God that he's given me.
Also, if I've never bit my lip
submission and said, God your God, I'm not, forgive me of my sin.
I want a relationship with you. I believe what Jesus did on the cross.
There's no way that you can
enjoy the promises of God
as he intended his people to experience them.
And so, though the people are in the Promised Land,
there's a lot of enemies of God's people in that land.
And as the people failed to deal
seriously with those people remaining there, as they failed to deal
seriously with them, they ended up living
still under bondage and defeat.
Similarly,
if we failed to deal with the enemies
of our spiritual life, sin, we fail to deal sin in our life.
Seriously.
We will also live lives of defeat.
And so we enter this scenario.
We see this man Gideon and God said, Gideon,
I want to deliver you and my people
from those enemies that are ruining their lives.
Gideon and his people have cried out to God.
God understands the the difficulty with which they're living.
The he understands the defeat
they're living under the enemies that are oppressing them.
They cry out to God. God says, thank you for crying out to me.
Of course I will intervene.
Gideon, you're the one.
I'm going to do it through.
And immediately Gideon comes up with excuses.
Why, God, you probably choose someone else
of why he's not quite ready, of why he's not quite capable.
And it reminds me a lot of me in or reminds me a lot of you.
And it reminds me a lot of us.
Gideon really does want to be set free.
Gideon really does want to live in the freedom of God's promises.
Gideon really does want to be used of God in significant ways.
But he's fearful, right?
Little unsure,
and reminds me of us
because I believe that most of us really do
want all that God has for us.
We want things to get better
and to be better, and to be all that God designed them to be.
Our marriages and our families and our it and all that stuff.
But there's part of us that is a little fearful to jump
all in with God,
a little fearful, a little hesitant, a little bit of doubt to say, okay,
I want to be a fan of Jesus.
I don't want to be a fanatic.
And so there's there's some of that with us
that we're just hesitant to say, okay, Lord, all the way, your way.
Yeah. And so we're Gideon was.
And so though God says, Gideon, you're my guy.
Gideon says, I appreciate the sentiment.
However,
he's not quite sure of himself, nor of God.
And so Genesis star sorry, judges six starting in verse 36.
Then Gideon said to God,
if you will save Israel by my hand,
he knows what God told him said, get it, I'm gonna save Israel by your hand.
He says, if you're saved by my hand, as you have said, behold,
I'm laid a fleece of wool on the threshing floor.
Any of your church people?
Have you ever heard the story of getting a man and the fleece laying out a fleece?
A few of you.
Okay, for those of you haven't, this is this is this really famous story.
If there's dew on the fleece alone and it's dry on the ground, then
I shall know that you will save yourself by my hand as you have said.
And it was so
when Gideon rose early the next morning, and squeeze
the fleece, he wrung out enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl of water.
Then Gideon said to God, God, that was fantastic.
However.
Let not your anger burn against me.
Let me speak just once more.
Please let me test just once more with the fleece.
Please let it be dry
on the fleece only and all,
on all the ground.
Let there be dew.
And God did so that night, and it was dry
on the fleece only, and all the ground there was do now.
So Gideon really does want to do what he really does want to follow God.
He really does want to be obedient and faithful and all that stuff.
But he's just fearful.
He's afraid. He's unsure. And so he says, God,
if you're going to do what you said you would do,
then I'm gonna lay this fleece out.
At night when I wake up, I want the fleece be when the dry and the ground dry.
And God does it.
Would that be enough for me in you to say, all right, I'm.
I'm in.
No. It wouldn't.
You're not any better.
I'm not either.
Let's not, like, get all high and mighty right now.
So. So here's here's what. Get it.
And here's what we do.
Well,
maybe I should have reversed it
because fleece absorbs water.
And so with the dew on the ground, maybe the fleece just absorbed
all the water from the ground.
And that's why the fleece was written the dry and the ground was dry.
So maybe it really wasn't. God, I was hearing
right?
Maybe I just made
a little bit more convincing.
And so God, understanding
our doubts, understanding our fear is super patient
allows Gideon to reverse it.
And so God make the fleece
dry, the ground wet, then all know
and God does it because he is so good. It.
But here's what I know.
Fear is the driving force in Gideon's life.
He's scared.
When God first called him, he was scared.
Threshing,
threshing went out the winepress.
We talked about that.
It was a it was because he was scared of the Midianites.
Fears driving.
And when fear is at the helm,
we spend our lives questioning God.
When fear's driving the bus,
all we do is look for U-turns.
I want to go a different way.
I want to do it differently. I'm afraid.
This passage, I
think, has been so misunderstood by church folks,
and I want to explain to you in a way, I think, that that honors
what we know of God in Scripture and honors our response
to him.
This passage has been understood
by my church people because they've been taught this way
that says, God,
I need to determine your will.
So I'm going to put out a fleece.
So give me a sign so I will know your will.
You understand how that plays?
And at the surface of what that looks like, what Gideon's doing.
But that's not what he's doing.
Gideon already knew the will of God.
God's will
was to save his people through Gideon.
Though, God's will wasn't in question.
Gideon
was not seeking a determination of God's will.
Gideon was seeking a confirmation of God's presence.
That's the difference.
And when church people
say, God, I need a sign from you about your will.
God says, no, I have.
Oh, you already know my will.
The fact is that most people in church
know more of the will of God than what they do.
Right.
Our issue is not knowing what we ought to do according to God's will.
Our issue is trusting enough to do it.
And so Gideon is not seeking a determination of the will of God.
He is seeking the confirmation of God's presence because Gideon will know
that God, if you are with me unmistakably, it's
going to be okay.
And I suggest that's where you and I are.
To say, God, I need a sign from you about your will.
I need guidance in the form of a sign.
We have to be very, very, very careful because Jesus will later say a wicked
and adulterous generation asks for a sign.
We have to be very
careful about this whole sign thing.
While the Holy Spirit will come upon Gideon,
we, after the cross and Pentecost,
have been given the Holy Spirit within.
And so the Christ follower, the disciple,
the apprentice of Jesus, ought not ask for guidance,
because God will say, I have given you the guide.
You don't need to ask me for guidance
through a sign I have given you the guide within you.
Another name of the Holy Spirit is our guide, and if we have been given
God the guide within us, why would I be so frail in faith?
To think I need a sign from God about guidance?
You understand?
And so our issue
is learning to tune our ear,
to hear the voice of God, our guide, the Holy Spirit.
So we don't have to
seek for signs and confirmations of his.
Will you follow me so far? Oh, yes.
Oh, yeah. Oh.
So God is patient
and gracious and is patient with Gideon like he's patient with us.
He says, I'm going to speak to you again about my will.
You already know it, but I will confirm my presence with you.
And that's what he does for Gideon.
And so then in verse in chapter seven,
then Zerubbabel, which is another name for Gideon and all the people
who were with him rose early and encamped beside the spring of Herod.
And the camp of Midian was north of them by the hill of Mora, in the valley.
The Lord said to get him,
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.
So Gideon musters the forces,
and he gets all the guys ready to fight,
and we will learn that he has 32,000, men ready to go to battle.
32,000 the problem? That's a lot of people.
But the problem is the Midianites have mustered their forces
of 135,030 2000, compared to 135,000.
Do you see the problem?
You see the problem.
So those of you who didn't go to one of the Madera high schools,
what what would be the the mathematical ratio
35,000 compared 135,104 to 1.
A marine got that?
That is impressive.
Yeah.
It's a 4 to 1 ratio.
That's not very good odds right.
Going into battle a 4 to 1 ratio.
Now you ask a marine is like yeah no problem.
4 to 1 ratio.
And God says get in.
You got a problem.
What what is the problem that God identifies for Gideon?
Yes. Men.
That Gideon has too many four.
It's a 4 to 1 ratio.
How are you going to tell me?
I have too many.
Listen,
most of us get in these times,
and maybe some of you are in these times when you feel completely outnumbered,
when the cards stacked against you are too many, too
powerful, too big, and you're crying for more.
More resources, more time or energy, more, more your God, I need more.
You haven't given me enough, right?
The task reform is too difficult.
Listen, here's what we have to understand.
That difficulty must only be measured by the one doing the work.
If the battle were completely up to get in his men.
Yeah, it's difficult,
but difficulty must only be measured by the one doing the work.
Who is doing the work of this battle, Gideon or God
shows a 4 to 1 ratio.
Too difficult.
Listen, as long as you and I fight our battles
in our own strength, with our own resources
and our own strategy, with our own knowledge, it's too much,
it's too difficult.
And that's why we feel overwhelmed and discouraged and tired
and exhausted and defeated because we're trying so hard
to muster our strength and muster us to do it.
And it's too difficult.
But when difficulty is measured by the one doing the work
and we submit and say, okay, God, I am incapable,
you are my only.
My only option.
Now the tables turn
because now the difficulty is measured by the one doing the work.
You understand and.
And so
now therefore, proclaiming the ears
of the people, saying, This is God to get him to tell the people.
So get tells the people, whoever is fearful and trembling,
let him return home and hurry away from Mount Juliet.
So then 22,000 of the 32,000 returned
home, and Gideon was left with how many?
10,000.
Okay, guys, we're going to go to war.
If you're afraid, you can go home.
22,000 leave.
Listen, this is what God does.
He gives his people tests of faith.
The opposite of fear is not courage.
Biblical. The opposite of fear is faith.
And so when he says, if you're fearful, leave.
I don't want you here in this work.
What he's doing is giving them
not a test of courage is giving them a test of faith.
And God will always lead us to these positions of being outnumbered
and overwhelmed, to give us tests of faith.
When Gideon tells the guys, if you're fearful, leave.
What he's doing is what God said to do.
Back in Deuteronomy 20.
I think verses five 629,
God gave his people for reasons they didn't have to go to battle.
One of them was, according to Deuteronomy 20,
if you build a house, if you just built a house
and are called up for service, you don't have to go serve
because it would be horrible if you went to war and died
and someone else got to live in your home.
So go home, enjoy it for a little while.
You know, you just moved to Riverstone just for fun and,
curse out your neighbors.
The second reason why you didn't have to go to battle
is if if you planted a vineyard and the Bible says in due time 20
if you just a vineyard, you don't have to go to war,
because then if you died, someone else
would eat your grapes in your oranges, and that would just be a barn.
The third reason is you didn't have to go to war is if you got married
and God was like, look.
Nobody wants to get married and not enjoy their honeymoon.
And so if you just get married, like, you don't have to go fight
because your wife is going to be at home really frustrated and upset.
And by the time you do come home, she's not going to be very happy with you.
So just go home, take care of her.
You know the fourth reason
why God said you don't have to go to war is if you're afraid.
And the reason why God said if you're fearful you don't have to go is so that.
And the Bible says, And I'm 20, otherwise your fear
would infect the rest of your company.
Here's what we have to understand.
Fear and faith are both very contagious.
And so when God says, I'm
going to move, I want those who are want to move with me, to come with me.
Everybody else, stay away.
Because he knew if he allowed 22,000 fearful, unfaithful hearts
to be amongst the 32,000, it would turn all 32 away.
You understand?
That's why some of you need to change your friends
and your groupings.
Because you're spending way too much time
with fearful, doubting, unfaithful people.
And you know the effect that has on you.
Right.
So it says you're afraid.
Go 10,000.
Remain
against 135,000.
What's the ratio, marine one.
Yeah, well I would say 14 to 1, but we can disagree on it.
14 to 1.
Or the odds getting better or worse.
And what's God doing.
On the Lord said to Gideon the people are still too many.
Come. Whoa whoa whoa, hold on.
You're going the opposite direction.
God, I agree to follow you, and stuff's getting worse.
I be obedient, and stuff's getting more difficult.
Ever been there?
God, I'm doing what you asked.
Why are you turning the fire up
right.
Take them down to the water and I'll test them for you there.
And anyone whom I say to you, this one shall go with you shall go with you.
And anyone of 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 does, you shall set by himself.
Likewise everyone who kneels down to drink
gods give it.
Here it is.
When I was a little boy, my parents did a great job
at taking us to church and telling us Bible stories.
This was one of the stories that that our parents taught
us, and I had a question like, what is God doing here?
Like, you got to send these guys to boot camp to get them ready.
Now, when my daddy was in a marine Corps boot camp
did not consist of how do you drink water?
That seems what boot camp is for these guys.
And I was really like, what is this?
This is why the Bible didn't make sense to me. Like it does.
This is ridiculous. Let me tell you what's going on.
God was giving his people the test of readiness.
He had already given them the test of faith.
I know you're fearful, but will you be faithful now?
He's giving you the test of readiness.
And this is how this this is what was going down.
He's got all these guys,
and he says, I want you to take him down to the river
because they're thirsty and watch how they drink.
They've got two options. Drink.
One is drinking like a dog does when he gets down
on all fours and drinks like this.
But if you have a dog, is how they drink right?
He says, some of you guys are going to be out there
and they're supposed to verify and they're thirsty and they're drinking.
Some of them are going to scoop the water
and they're going to drink out of their hands,
right?
That's how they're going to do it.
What's the difference?
We're getting ready to go to war.
Am I ready to fight?
No, I'm a dead man.
I got no idea what's going on around me right
then.
If I fight with swords, how am I going to grab my sword?
Whereas this.
But now I'm alert.
Now I'm ready.
I see what's going on.
I'm not surprised by a thing.
If I need to draw my sword, I can draw my sword.
Do you see? It is doing.
He's giving them a test of ready.
Are you ready?
You might believe you might have things with me,
but you're not ready.
Set. Are you ready?
It's the same thing as us.
Are you, in a word, to you?
Where are your eyes? Open.
Are you surprised by how I don't see it?
Come on.
I'm not here.
There's an offer named Cooper,
and he said people live in four different colors white, yellow, orange and red.
And people who live in the white.
They're these type of people.
See, if you've seen them. Yes.
Clueless.
Do you ever see people walking around town like that?
Walk around school one where I work
at home with the people they're supposed to love.
Whenever I'm out around town and I see people walking like this,
I make sure I get right in front of them and start walking right towards them,
because I can't wait to run into them.
Friggin head down generation
living in the white, completely oblivious to what's going on around them.
And when they live like that, when you live like that
and something happens, you're dead.
Yeah, it's not.
And so one thing is, author says that we need to be people who live in the yellow.
We're alert.
You notice things,
you see, who sit sitting where,
see who's carrying what.
You notice.
And they're not surprised.
That's what God was doing.
Live attentively.
Understand what the Scripture says.
So we don't wrestle primarily against flesh and blood,
but against rulers, authorities and powers who don't sleep.
It's a constant.
But greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.
You don't have to be fearful, but you got to be aware.
Yeah. Amen.
There's a lot more going on than what we see.
And if all we see is all that we see that
we're missing a lot that we should be seeing.
Like I said, my daddy taught me
that principle a long time ago, and I still remember it.
Someone said this, and many people take a lot of unnecessary time
with necessary things to be alert for your heart.
Be ready.
Have a sense of urgency,
not panic and not rush,
but alertness and urgent, especially regarding
spiritual things.
And the number of those who lapped
putting their hands to their mouths was 300 men,
but all the rest of the people knelt down to drink water.
And the Lord said to Gideon, with the 300 men who left,
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 the provisions in their hands and their trumpets,
and he sent all the rest of Israel, every man, to his tent,
but retained the 300 men from 32,000 down to how many?
300. Now, finally,
God's in a position to get the glory.
If they would have wanted a 4 to 1 ratio,
they all thought, yeah, well, we're pretty darn good fighting men.
You know what
the ratio was now 300 to compare 235,000.00
and 450 to 1,
450 to 1.
That's the odds.
So I mean the Spartans couldn't even get this done right?
This is Sparta.
450 to 1.
If you ever felt like those are your odds
that.
And the captain Midian
was below him in the valley that same night, the Lord said to him.
Arise, go down against the camp, for I've given it into your hand.
But if you are afraid, Gideon, because he knows us.
If you're afraid,
if you're afraid to go down in the desert, go down into the camp with your servant,
and you shall hear what they say.
And after afterward, your hands
shall be strengthened to go down against the camp.
Then he went down with Pourra, his servant,
to the outpost of the armed men who were in the camp,
and the Midianites, and the Amalekites, and all the people of the east
lay along the valley like locusts in abundance, and their camels
were with outnumber as the sand that is on the seashore in abundance.
God says, Gideon, if you're still afraid,
take your servant and go down to their camp.
And what does Gideon do
or take?
Servant goes down. What's that mean about Gideon?
He's still afraid.
Why don't you think at some point you have enough? Say.
Okay, well. Let's go. Right.
We're the same.
God answers one for God steps and does one thing.
And immediately for God. I'd.
He's still fearful.
Overwhelming odds.
And God is so good and so.
Look at this.
When Gideon came down to the camp,
behold, a man was telling a dream to his comrade.
And he said, behold, I dreamed a dream.
And get this 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 the whole thing, the whole tent upside down, so that the tent laid flat.
And his comrade answered, well,
this is no other than the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel.
God has given into his hand Midian and all the camp.
So God says, get it?
If you're still afraid, I want you to go right now and listen.
And he gets there right at the moment
where one of the midnight soldiers is telling another soldier
about a dream he had of a barley loaf rolling down the hill,
crashing into the tent and leveling the tent.
God's timing is so good.
He got get into where he needed to be right at the right moment
to bolster his faith.
Why is it significant that it was a barley loaf
rolling down the hill?
Barley was the bread
that you fed your livestock, not your people.
It was the bread of the poorest, of the poor, of the poor.
What was Gideon's initial excuse when God said, I want to use you?
He said, I have no value.
I'm the least and most insignificant of all the people in my family.
And my family is at least the most insignificant family in the entire tribe.
And our tribe is the least, most insignificant tribe of all 12 I,
I have no value.
I can't do this.
So God is addressing his initial concern.
I'm gonna take a barley loaf.
That which in your eyes has no value is of no consequence.
And that's why I'm going to use it.
Was Gideon.
God is so good.
And so look at what he does.
He gets this word like he's like, okay, I got my God, I got God, I got
as soon as Gideon
heard this telling of this dream and this interpretation, he.
What he worshiped
and the return of the camp of Israel and said, arise.
For the Lord has given the host of Midian into your hand.
Listen.
We have to become worshipers
before we can be warriors.
We have to become worshipers
before we become warriors.
It's not about the fight.
It's about the worship.
I like to say it like this.
Public victories are
results of private devotions.
Most people just work on the the public.
I got to get better.
I got to be.
This has to happen first.
Our private or public victories
will be the result of private devotions.
After I've worshiped,
after I've done time with Jesus, then I can find.
When I fight for your marriage,
it's going to be after you've worshiped,
after you've devoted yourself to God in His Word.
You want to fight for your family.
It's after you worship.
It's after your devotions.
Do you understand?
Gideon got all this confirmation from God and he didn't go fight.
He went to church.
I'm proud of you for being here.
This is your prayer preparation for your battle this week.
Your public victories will be a result
of this.
But look at the art 451.
This is what God often does.
He often God often stacks the deck against us.
Makes the odds worse and worse and worse.
When we pray for better odds, God says, that's not my way.
My way are worse odds for you. Why?
Two reasons to reveal our faith or lack of it.
And to require us to live by faith.
Not to live by the confidence
in our strength or the confidence in the numbers.
All through the Bible,
this is what God does.
God went from 4 to 1 with Gideon
all the way down to 450 to 1 odds.
You go later in the Bible,
Elijah with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel.
If you include the prophets of Baal and the prophets of Asherah, 850 to 1.
If you
look at the way God's math and ratios work starts at 4 to 1, goes
to 451, goes to 851, and then by the time Jesus gets here
was his disciples Post-Resurrection he says, I'm with you and I'm sending you.
You'll be my witness.
Here's the very end of the age.
Those ratios at that time.
11 to 300 million. Wow.
That's a 1 to 27 million ratio.
Look at God's math from 4 to 1
450 to 1 850 to 1
to one.
For every 22,000,027 million.
That's God's math.
Why does God keep him moving
the odds that way against us? Why?
Because he keeps proving himself.
To go from 4 to 1, down to 2 to 1.
What are you getting weaker.
Right.
Remember, difficulty is measured
by the one doing the work.
One for every 27 million.
Ain't tough for God.
He's the one doing the work.
So when the odds feel like it is overwhelming God against me,
God says, I know it is
because I want you to come to terms with what your faith is and what it isn't.
And I want you to come to terms of submitting to me for.
If you're being forced
to rely only on God, guess what?
Rely on God alone.
If you're being forced to rely on God alone, rely on God alone.
It's pretty simple.
We keep thinking and praying
that God will give us better odds.
And God says, I don't want you to have better odds.
I want you to have a little bit of faith.
Because a little bit of faith.
I'll move a mountain.
Right.
I need to fight a 300 man
into three companies and put trumpets in the hands of all the all of them.
And empty jars with torches inside.
Each man has two hands.
He's been given two implements.
What are they?
A trumpet and a torch with.
With the jar.
Where's the sword?
It's not listed.
They got two hands.
They got a trumpet and a torch covered up in a jar.
And he said to them, look at me. Use.
Gideon says, look at me and do like, do what I do
when I come to the outskirts of the camp, do as I do when I blow the trumpet.
I and all who are with me then blow the trumpet.
And on every side of the camp, and shout for the Lord and for Gideon.
I love this about leaders.
Leaders lead from the front.
They don't command from the rear.
Leaders are the tip of the spear.
Leaders say, do as I do,
not just what I say.
That's the role of leaders.
That's the role of leadership.
Watch what happens.
So Gideon, of the 100 men who were with him,
came to the outskirts of the camp at the beginning of the middle of us.
Watch.
So right as they had had
and had just set the watch as they were changing the guards,
and they blew the trumpets and smashed the jars that were in heads.
What was then thought inside the jars, the torch.
Then the three companies
blew the trumpets and broke their jars.
They held in their left hand the torches
and in the right hands the trumpets to blow.
And they cried out, A short for the Lord and for Gideon.
And every man stood in his place around the camp,
and all the army ran.
They cried out and fled.
You got
Gideon's 300 men around the the rim of the camp.
The mediums and markets are all down below and in the middle of the night.
Write offs and change the guard.
All of a sudden crash of the jars.
All these torches illumine and the trumpets sound.
And it looks to the enemies down below as if they are surrounded
by hordes of armies.
When did get in his men ever draw
their sword?
God wanted to make it so crystal clear.
This is about me.
It's not about your ability.
I'm with you.
Don't be afraid.
In the midst of your fear, be obedient.
I got this.
They lose their minds.
When they blew the 300 trumpets, the Lord set
every man's sword against his comrade.
And against all the army.
They slaughtered each other
without Gideon and his
300 men doing the thing.
And that day, God won a great victory.
Not because Gideon was fearless, but in the midst of his fear.
He was obedient
to understand.
And he didn't fight or complained
against God, stacking the odds against him,
he said, okay, God, that's how are you going to play this one?
What do you want from me now?
Okay, God, that's how you're going to play this one.
What do you want from me now?
Okay. God, that's how you're going to play this one.
What do you want
from me now?
The great victory that God gained that day was great,
but it was going to create a lot of internal problems.
And chapter eight is all about that.
You see, when Gideon garners to garner his people to go fight,
he left out the largest and most powerful of the northern tribes.
He didn't invite them to fight.
And because our
egos are so wrapped up in ourselves,
the fact that they weren't invited,
it triggered them.
And because they weren't asked to be a part of the battle, they got jealous
because they were ignorant, arrogant,
and their feelings got really hurt.
Let me just tell you this, my friends.
Jealous people with hurt feelings
rob everybody's joy.
They'll work it out.
But that's for next week.
Chapter it.
I want you to read it this week.
For us, as we wrap this up,
I want to ask you this.
Have you consider does it feel like you're just up against it?
Whatever it is, are the odds forever
not in your favor.
You have to know who God is.
If you're going to have hope of surviving it.
See, disciples know this.
Followers of Jesus know this.
Apprentices of Jesus know.
That he is a God who is capable of anything.
Go ahead, God, stack the odds
you're doing the work.
It's okay.
Disciples, apprentices of Jesus know
that he's a God who will give us tests of faith, and we need him.
We need him.
He'll put us in positions to be fearful because he wants to reveal the faith
we have when we don't have.
Disciples of Jesus.
Apprentices of Jesus know that he's a God who will give us tests of readiness.
Pay attention.
Are you aware?
Of what's going on around you?
Not just in the physical world, but spiritually as well?
Disciples of apprentices just know this.
He's capable of anything, but it's going to put us in positions
and test our faith and faith and and put us in position to test our readiness.
And so
disciples of Jesus,
well, you must be a worshiper before you become a warrior.
But we have to be people of worship.
And prayer and Bible reading and
and the internal stuff
where this becomes the priority,
not your strategy,
not your numbers.
Well, we we have to realize that our public victories
will only be a result of private devotions.
You want to win.
You want your marriage, your family,
your finances.
You want where you invest your time and your energy.
It starts here.
Before it's ever seen out there.
Disciples.
Apprentices of Jesus understand
that we rely on God alone.
To whom else are you going to go
right?
Aren't your prayer?
God, you are a good God.
Good, good.
And I thank you for what you've given us in your Word
that shows us your heart, that helps us understand your ways.
So that you are not a mystery anymore.
Though you are mysterious,
you and your ways are not a mystery
that we can know you.
We can know them.
I thank you for your word,
and I thank you that you love us enough to remain faithful
to who you are and to those you have called
God. There are some of us in this place that are fearful.
There are some of us in this place that have very little faith,
that all we see are the odds stacked against us,
the odds stacked against our marriage, the odds stacked against our health,
the odds stacked against our future, the odds stacked against our family.
The odds stacked against.
And for some, that is so overwhelming
and so fearful. God,
they just don't know what to do.
And I thank you that you understand that about us,
and that with mercy and patience
you call us, even
in the midst of fear and doubt,
to take one step of obedience at a time. Yes.
Yes, father, I believe that you have spoken to us what your will is.
We're not asking to know more.
What we are asking for
is confirmation of your presence
and your power with us and within us.
Holy spirit, you are our guide.
Guide. You,
God, you are the God who is with us.
Confirm that for us
and we will take.
I challenge you just to make this commitment to God right now.
I challenge you to make this commitment to God.
I promise to make
imperfect steps of obedience.
God, I'm not going to tell you that I'm going to be perfect.
I'm not.
But I will promise I will take imperfect steps of obedience as
best I can.
You know?
And, father,
as you see us, as we show you that we trust you
by even our imperfect steps of obedience, would you move your hand
in spite of the overwhelming, not
would you move your hand
in mighty and unmistakable ways
to confirm who you are
that we've seen in Scripture, and to do what you've done in the past?
The stories that we heard in their days.
May they be the stories that we tell in ours.
You hear?
We trust you.
That's what we got.
No one else to trust.
Do what only you can do.
And for that God, we give you things.
In your name I pray.
Amen.
Listen, I love you, I love.
Open the Bible with you.
The Bible is fun, isn't it?
Any fun?
Yeah, it's good stuff, man.
So listen, judges eight, next week,
we'll do our best to get through that and see what God gives us a little bit.
And we'll get on to chapter nine and ten as well.
It's pretty interesting. Okay.
All right.
Kind of song alley that you were
Zoe singing actually that was Jeff singing.
They're going to help. I hope so.