Gideon

- I dunno if you realize this, but faith takes courage. I think you can see that when you see the definition of faith in the book of Hebrews chapter 11, it's a simple one. And it says this, "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for." Confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see is something that takes courage. Because for us, we're not talking about just some pie in the sky idea of saying well, I'm hoping for things that I don't see and I'm wanting the universe to manifest them. This is actually about the object of our faith, who is the Lord Jesus, and allowing ourselves to confidently trust him, that all of his promises are true, that he does what he says he will do, and that we can trust him, even though we do not see him. And this takes courage, especially in our day because the world that we live in rages against the idea of faith in Jesus, and actually calls us to make sure that we only deal with what our eyes can see and behold, right? But this is also not just true for our day, it's true for the ancient world, because this is what the scripture says. the ancients were commended for it. What they were commended for was their faith. And when you're reading in Hebrews chapter 11, you're really reading testimony after testimony after testimony of person after person after person from the Old Testament, who decided that they would walk by faith. But interestingly enough, in every single one of those scenarios, they needed a courageous faith, because they were living in perilous times or they found themselves in perilous situations. So they needed courage to be added with their faith. Now we've already talked about what faith is in Hebrews 11, but I'm talking about a courageous faith. And you're maybe thinking to yourself, well, how are you defining courage? What is it you're talking about when you're talking about a courageous faith? Well, I don't know if you remember this, some of you had the opportunity, we had thousands that actually watched this, but during the time of the pandemic, when everything was shut down, kind of the world was closed, we put together an online night of encouragement. It was great. We had people that were praying, we had some songs that were sung, people sharing testimonies about what God had done in their life. And then I was on there to just take a moment and talk to the kids. And it was great 'cause I don't often get to do that. I don't get to be the guy who stands up in front of all the children and gets the opportunity to talk to them. I was a little bit scared, I was like, man, I gotta talk to the kids, like this is scary. I mean they're listening and this is real. And so I put on my Captain America shirt and I stuffed it with a bunch of pillows and made myself look like humongous. They did this great video editing with me and I jumped in and I was Captain Pastor America. And so I did some fun stuff there and talked about courage. And then I took all the stuff out and said, hey, I'm really not this muscular, even though I don't think I was fooling anyone, especially the kids. And I basically said, well, what does it take for us to be able to walk through what we're walking through? It takes courage and what really is courage? And so I defined it for them the same way I'll define it for you today, it's this. Courage is when we realize there's something more important than fear, doing what God wants. Courage is when we realize, you know what, there is something that's more important than the fear that I'm feeling and what is that? Doing what God actually wants. And I would say to you that in all of these stories, in Hebrews chapter 11, that we see, which is really what we would call a Hall of Faith. We have hall of fames for various athletes that have done exceptional. And this kind of reads like a hall of faith, like all of these ancients that have commended themselves to God and commended themselves to us because of their faith in God and what they've believed about God and how they've trusted in God. And any of these ancients that we're describing here in Hebrews chapter 11, would be great for us to choose as an example of courageous faith, because they're all walking through perilous situations and perilous times. But I'm just gonna pick one today, and his name is Gideon. We meet Gideon in Hebrews 11, but very briefly, here's what the writer of Hebrews 11 says. "And what more shall I say?" And by the way, he's already listed all of these people that he's talked about and the faith that they've had. And he says, "What more shall I say? I don't even have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised, who shut the mouths of lions, quench the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword, whose weakness was turned to strength, whose weakness was turned to strength," keep that in mind, "And who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies." Keep that one in mind too. It's interesting because the writer of Hebrews 11 is talking about all of these people of faith. And then it's almost as if, when he is writing, he's about to sum up what he's been writing. And he's like, oh yeah, there's a whole lot more of them. And he says, I don't even have time to talk about Barak and Samson, Samuel and Gideon. It's almost like he's thinking to himself, I've run out of time, but I don't wanna miss them, I wanna make sure I acknowledge them as well. And even though the writer doesn't really expand upon Gideon like he does with so many of the other ancients who walked by faith, we wanna take a moment to be able to do that in our time together. Here's what I'd first want you to understand. The time that Gideon lived in was perilous, like bad, really bad for the Israelites. And in fact, when you go to Judges chapter six, which is where we're going to be, we're gonna be in Judges six and seven. When we look at the story of Gideon, if you wanna find your place there, you can. But I want you to catch up real quick with what was going on in the context of the time and place that Gideon was living in. Listen to it beginning in Judges six verse one, "The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord. And for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites, and other eastern peoples invaded the country. They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza, and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep, nor cattle, nor donkeys. They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count them or their camels. They invaded the land to ravage it. Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help." Can we agree this was a bad, bad time in the life of Israel? Israel was dealing with the Midianites. When you hear Midianites in the context of Israel, you hear don't, dun, dun dun, right? Because it's just scary for them. Because what the Midianites would do is they would come, and when Israel's trying to plant their crops, the Midianites would rush in and they would just wreak havoc on the land. They would ravage the place. They wouldn't leave anything for them to eat. They wouldn't leave any of the animals alive. They would just come in and they were basically impoverishing. They were putting Israel in poverty. And now the people of Israel, they're hiding in mountains, they're hiding in caves, they're hiding in the clefs of the rock. They're trying to stay away from all the Midianites, because the Midianites are oppressing them and ravaging them and joining forces with others to be able to do that. It was a horrible, horrible place to be. And why were they in that position? Because Israel had been doing evil in the sight of the Lord and God gave them over to that for a seven year period. And then God raised up a prophet, who's unnamed in Judges chapter six. And he raises this prophet up to tell his people, Israel, hey, you know it's really bad, right? And they're like, yeah. And he's like, yeah, yeah, that's what you deserve. God told you to walk with him and you didn't. God told you what would happen if you didn't. And so you're not just reaping what you sowed, and that's what the prophet shared with them. But God in his mercy shows up to a young man named Gideon. And right after all of this we're introduced to Gideon and it's just a few verses down in Judges, six verse 11, it says, "The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a wine press to keep it from the Midianites. When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, the Lord is with you mighty warrior." Huh. "Pardon me, my Lord, Gideon replied. But if the Lord's with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt? But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian. 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? Pardon me, Lord, Gideon replied, but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh and I am the least in my family. The Lord answered, I will be with you and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive." Now I wanna give you a handful of truths from Gideon's story about courageous faith. And here's the first one that we just came upon. Courageous faith embraces what God says about us. I want you to jot that down. Courageous faith embraces what God has said about us. Now, I don't know if you picked this up about Gideon, but Gideon was real clear when God said, hey, I'm gonna use you to defeat Midian. Gideon says, yeah, about that, I don't know if you know this, but I'm like the least in my family and my family is the weakest clan in Manasseh. So if you're looking for a candidate, you have actually gone to the literal bottom of the barrel. I am the least in my family, from the weakest family in all of my tribe. What are you doing? And God says, what's up mighty warrior. It's a literal Hebrew, what's up, literally what he says, what's up mighty warrior? Again Gideon is like, come again? Did you just call me a mighty warrior? Do you know who you're talking to? It's really interesting to me because it sounded ridiculous to Gideon, didn't it? It would've had to. For Gideon to be, he knows who he is, I'm the least in my family. I'm from the weakest family in all of my tribe. And the angel of the Lord shows up and says, what's up mighty warrior? He's just going, that just sounds ridiculous, right? It sounded ridiculous to Gideon, but it didn't sound ridiculous to God. And the reason it didn't sound ridiculous to God is because God was less concerned about who Gideon was, because God knew who Gideon was going to be. I hope you know that about yourself too, that God knows who you are, but God also knows who you're going to be. God knows by the way, who you are better even than you know who you are. Because when we get to know God, we get to know who we really are. Because there are times in our lives where I can promise you, I know that this has happened in your life, and it's happened in mine, where maybe we've had a narrative that has been labeled on us about our very lives. You know, when you were growing up, you just got designated as something. Maybe you never felt impressive enough to really be used by God or to be able to do anything for God, 'cause you're like, I don't really talk good, and I didn't do so good in school, and I don't really have the Bible memorized that well and all that stuff. And you've really just kind of put yourself in this place. And you've said, I just don't know if God could actually do with me what he wants to do with me. And you've actually bought a narrative, listen to this, a narrative that other people have pinned on you or you've pinned on yourself that God hasn't. And so maybe for you, you know, you've always been known as the funny one. They're the funny one, they can't do anything seriously, they can't take anything serious, they're just a funny one. And because you've been, hey, you've had that narrative poured over your life so often, you've always shirked from the serious job of following after God and walking with him. And you've just kind of been the funny one. Or maybe you've been known as the, they're the smart one, and you feel this pressure, you've always gotta be the smartest one in the room, but you really feel a bit like a phony 'cause there's times where you realize I'm not the smartest one in the room, I'm just acting like the smartest one in the room. But that's because you've been given this narrative, this label over your life of that's who you are, right. Or maybe you're the athletic one or maybe you're the dumb one, you're the failure. It could be any of those things, right? We could find ourselves being named by any of those things. But what you fail to remember is that God is the one who gets to say who we are. He showed up to Gideon, who was the weakest in his family, from the least of the families in all of the tribe. And he says, what's up mighty warrior? And you've been walking around like Gideon with a narrative about yourself that says that you can't be used by God to do anything great. But God has something different to say to you. Instead of the narrative that you've embraced about yourself. I'm the failure or I haven't done this good enough or I'm insufficient to do this. Here's what God says, you're a saint, you're a priest, you're a child of the king, you're an ambassador, you are a mighty warrior. God gets to define who we are even when we don't see it. And do you know what it takes? It takes a courageous faith to believe what God says about us. I'm not talking about you being selfish and trying to impose your own visions of grandeur for your own selfish glory. I'm talking about getting to know God in such a way that we listen to what God says about us, and we embrace what God says about us, because God wants to use us for his purposes, regardless of where you come from. God has a tendency by the way, to use the weak things of the world to frustrate the strong, this is just how God operates, right? So whenever we think, you know what, God, I am so ready for you, you might need to back it up a step, Bucky, right? And humble yourself before God and let him do what he wants to do. So courageous faith embraces what God says about us. But secondly, courageous faith will act on what God says. Courageous faith will act on what God says. Look at verse 25, it says this, "That same night, the Lord said to Gideon, take the second bull from your father's herd, the one seven years old, and tear down your father's altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. Then build a proper kind of altar to the Lord, your God, on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second bull as a burnt offering. So Gideon took 10 of his servants, just as the Lord had told him. And because he was afraid of his family in the townspeople, he did it at night rather than in the daytime." You know, what's interesting when I look at this, is that God had already told Gideon that I'm gonna use you Gideon to defeat the Midianites. Now that has to be freaky enough, right? Gideon's like, oh man, come on, like what? Like, I'm the, what? I'm the least in my family, I'm from the weakest family. And you're gonna use me to defeat the Midianites, they scare everyone. Do you realize, do you see, look around, people are hiding, everyone's hiding. I'm here in a wine press, threshing wheat, because I don't wanna get caught. And you're gonna use me to be able to do this? God says, yep, that's what I'm gonna do. What's up mighty warrior? Okay, all right, yeah. He says, here's how I wanna start. I wanna start by you acting on what I tell you to do. And here's what I want you to start with. Tear down the false altars and false idols in your own family. Your dad's got one, it's made out to Baal. You've got a altar to bail. I want you to tear it down, and then I want you to rebuild altar to the one true God. This is where Israel needs to be. Israel needs to be back worshiping the one true God, but you've invited other things, other idols into this journey. And I want them gone. You think that was scary for him? I promise you it was. I promise you it was. In fact, just look again at verse 27. So Gideon took 10 of his servants and notice what it says, and did as the Lord told him. So he obeyed. But because he was afraid. Did you catch that? In the same paragraph here, we're told that Gideon was scared and still did what God told him to do. You know what I find incredibly encouraging about this is that I'm pretty sure most every time you really truly walk by faith, that it'll scare the life out of you. Some of us has bought this idea that if we truly have enough faith, we'll never deal with fear. I don't buy that idea. Because I think what faith does, faith is not the absence of fear, faith is still doing what God says, even when we're scared. That's what Gideon was commended for, that's what Gideon was actually doing. I started thinking about this is I was just sitting with the Lord and putting together this message and asking God's help in it. And just spending some time before the Lord, I started reflecting on my life a little bit. And I realized this, that every great step of faith that I've taken in my life, I was scared. I just started going through them. I was scared. And what are some of the things that I feared? I'll tell you. I started writing some of them down. The fear of failure. God's saying, I want you to do this. And I'm like, oh, this could go so bad. I could just fall on my face, look like an idiot. But God wanted me to do it. The fear of people and what they thought about me. You ever had that happen to your life? God wants you to do something by faith, and you're like, oh yeah, okay, but if I do that, they're gonna think I'm just, oh no, no, I'm scared of what they're gonna think. Or maybe it was, I've had scenarios where I feared financial insecurity because God called my wife and I to do some things in our giving and with our finances that scared us. And we thought, man, this feels like there could be some financial insecurity for us. But God made it clear this is what he wanted us to do. I've had the fear of insufficiency. God, I can't do this. I've had the fear of insecurity. God, there's other people that are far better set up to be able to do this. I've had the fear for my own physical safety, particularly in other countries of the world that I've been in, where God had asked me to do certain things. And I had things that scared me, right? That's all I'll say about that. So I know what this is like, and it's true, but courageous faith will act on what God says even when we are scared. That's a part of what it means. Fear and faith are almost always in the same boat. I can hardly think of a time in my life where I was just so full of faith that like nothing scared me. Get rid of the idea that you have to fearless to have faith. What you have to do is you still have to trust him even when it's scary. That's what it looks like to have courageous faith because we'll act on what God says. Thirdly, courageous faith grows as we desire God. Look, this is what you wanna dig into here. Courageous faith will grow as you desire God. Here's what happened, Gideon was called to have to lead Israel against the Midianites. This was gonna be really, really challenging for him 'cause he was scared out of his mind, right? And do you know what he wanted? Assurance. He wanted assurance that it was God who was doing this. He wanted assurance that God was really telling him to do this 'cause in his mind he keeps running back to, you know, God, I'm this guy, I'm from this family, and are you sure? Like, are you sure you don't wanna pick somebody else? He wanted assurance. So notice what he did. It says, "Gideon said to God, if you will save Israel by my hand, as you have promised, look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry around it, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand as you said. And that's what happened. Gideon rose early the next day, he squeezed the fleece and rung out the dew, a bowl full of water. Then Gideon said to God, do not be angry with me, Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew." So the exact opposite. "That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry and all the ground was covered with dew." Now some of you're going, man, I can relate to Gideon. I hear you, So can I. Here's what I think though. Gideon has gotten a bad rap for what he did here and I don't think he deserves one. Let me explain. I don't think Gideon is testing God from a place of unbelief. I think Gideon is testing God because he wants to make sure it's God who's telling him to do this. You see, God knew Gideon's heart, and Gideon, listen to this, Gideon wanted to obey. But this is a monumental thing that God is asking of him and all Gideon wants, he just wants the assurance to know this, God I wanna obey you, I just want to know for sure it's you, I just need to know it's you, right? This is what God actually did. And God came through for Gideon. He didn't rebuke him. He didn't. Think about that. He didn't rebuke him. He did what Gideon had asked. Self confession, I've done this. Maybe you have as well. And I'll tell you when I did it. I remember, it's probably been more than once, but I can tell you one for sure. When God called us to Buffalo. I didn't tell Edie I was doing this, but I was doing this and I didn't have a literal fleece. But I remember, like, I didn't know anything about Buffalo, literally nothing. Here's what I knew, three things, snow, the bills, Niagara Falls. That was the sum total of my understanding of Buffalo. I literally knew nothing. Yet Edie and I were clear, God was calling us here. God had made it clear that he wasn't calling us to some other, we had many other opportunities that God was laying before us that we began to pray about and look into. And God was saying, nope, he was shutting the door and shutting the door and shutting the door. Five or so different opportunities, God shut the door. And then all of a sudden Buffalo comes calling, and I'm like, what? 'Cause I don't know anything about Buffalo. What? So I started saying, I started having these conversations with God and here's how they went. I'm from the South. I'm only 32 years old. I'm literally having these conversations. I only have short sleeve shirts. So I said, okay, God, we're pretty sure that you're calling us, we're pretty sure that we heard your voice, we're pretty sure, God, that you're orchestrating this for us to come to Buffalo, but could I ask something? When the church votes on me as pastor, could you make it more than 96% approval? Just so I know this is you. And he did. And I'm looking to speak with that other 3%, by the way. I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I already did that early on. I kicked 'em out right away, I'm kidding, I didn't. Pastor Al was like, yeah, it was like 97 or 98%. He said, but some of they were anonymous, and so I think a couple of them were kids that just were like, no, he said they were written in crayon so I don't know if that tells you anything, and I'm like, whatever, so the kids hate me, that's awesome. So I had literally just put it out there, God, would you help me with this? And he did graciously and kindly and it wasn't, listen, It wasn't because I was trying to test God out of my unbelief. I wanted to obey. I genuinely wanted to obey. I was thrilled. God, whatever you call me to do, I was thrilled to be able to do it, wherever it is you call me, I wanna be able to do it, but I want to know it's you. I just want to know it's you. And that's what Gideon did. And here's the thing, courageous faith grows as we continue to desire God.

- As we continue to say, God, I want you, I want to know you, I want to obey you. Then we will keep pressing in, keep pressing in. Even if it feels like we're taking little steps of maturity along the way, we'll keep pressing in, and God will grow courageous faith as we desire God. Let me show you another truth here, courageous faith doesn't care about the odds. This one, boy, this is where this story gets so fun right here or frightening, that's a better descriptor. Listen to what it says in Judges chapter seven. Early in the morning, Jerub-Baal, that is Gideon. Do you know why they gave him that name by the way? Because not only was his family really mad at him when he tore down the Baal altars, the whole town wanted to kill him. And they basically said, we're gonna kill him. And then somebody spoke up, dad did, and he was like, well look, if Baal's so powerful, Baal can deal with him. And they were like, okay. So they gave him that name and said, Baal's gonna deal with you. But anyway, we'll call him Gideon, 'cause I don't like that name. "Early in the morning, Gideon, and all his men camped at the spring of Harod. The camp of Midian was north of them in the valley near the hill of Moreh. The Lord said to Gideon, you have too many men, I cannot deliver Midian into their hands or Israel would boast against me, my own strength has saved me, they would say. Now announce to the army anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead. So 22,000 men left while 10,000 remained." Okay. Here's what I know. We haven't talked about this yet, but you're going okay, I can do the math there, Israel had 32,000 troops. Yep, 32,000. Do you know how many Midian had? If you read Judges eight, you would find out and it's this many, 135,000. They had 135,000 against 32,000. Already, Israel is more than four times outnumbered. And God says, yeah, that's too many. Gideon has to be going, I'm sorry, what? Yeah, that's just too many, too many. Well, we have 32,000, they've got 135,000. What do you mean it's too many? They've outnumbered us four and a half times. It's too many. Because if Israel wins and I give them the victory, they'll take credit for that themselves, right? But I wanna do something where they're not gonna be able to take any credit for it. So Gideon, here's what you do, tell 'em, hey, is anybody scared? And if you're scared, run on home. 22,000 of the 32,000 checked out, 22,000. That left 10,000. Now there are 10,000 Israelites against 135,000. The odds have gotten worse. And here's the good news. God says, I dunno, that's still too many. Watch what it says, verse number four. "But the Lord said to Gideon, there are still too many men. Take them down to the water and I will thin them out for you there." Okay, awesome. "If I say this one shall go with you, he shall go. But if I say this one shall not go with you, he shall not go. So Gideon took the men down to the water and there the Lord told him separate those who lap the water with their tongues as a dog laps from those who kneel down to drink. 300 of them drank from cupped hands, lapping like dogs. All the rest got down on their knees to drink. The Lord said to Gideon, with the 300 men that lapped, I will save you, and give the Midianites into your hands. Let all the others go home. So Gideon sent the rest of the Israelites home, but kept the 300 who took over the provisions and trumpets of the others. Now the camp of Midian lay below him in the valley." Wow. It started out very, very differently. 32,000 Israelites against 135,000 Midianites. God said no, too many, cut it down. Cuts it down to 10,000. Gideon's like, oh boy. Can you imagine what he's thinking already? Imagine what he was thinking when he had 32,000 against 135,000. He's probably thinking this is like craziness, but I'm gonna trust the Lord. God says, okay, that's too many. Cut it down to 10,000. Okay, now this is worse. God says, no, 10,000 is still too many, let's go 300. I dunno, I don't know. This is a man of great faith, Gideon, because I would absolutely be freaking out that now I have 300 people, armed with no swords, to go against 135,000 Medianites. But guess what? Courageous faith does not care about the odds because we know who we're putting our faith in. It's not ourselves, it's God. I've been often asked over the last two and a half years about the pandemic and all that's happened over this timeframe. And I've been asked often, do you think that God is up to something? And if so, what do you think God is up to? The answer to the first question is easy. Yes, God is up to something. Here's why, God is always up to something. Okay, so that one's easy. So if you ever ask me the question, do you think God's up to something? The answer's always gonna be, yep, he's always up to something. So just file that away. You don't ever have to ask that question, right? He's always up to something. But what is he up to? I'm not 100% sure, and I haven't been 100% sure because his ways are higher than my ways. His thoughts are not my thoughts. But maybe Gideon gives us a little bit of insight. You know the church of North America is a shell of itself, post pandemic. It's an interesting thing. The church had already been actually in North America, declining even before the pandemic, by the way. But the pandemic has done some things along that line. There was a study from the year 2000, from the Faith and Community Today, they call it it the FACT Study, Faith and Community Today. And in that study, they found that the median church congregation was 137 people. This was in the year 2000. 137 people was the median local church congregation. Post pandemic, that number is 65. The median number of a local church congregation, 65, when it used to be 137. That's more than a 50% decrease. Here's what I think. There are many other factors that can be associated with all of this. But one of the factors is, is that cultural Christians are no longer involved in church. What do you mean Jerry? I mean, people that Christianity was just a part of of what they do, like going to work and taking the kids to ball or to dance or what, whatever. And it was just something that was on the calendar that you kind of grew up doing and whatever. But since all of this is transpired, and I'm not talking about people still have specific needs that need to stay home, I'm not talking about that, but I mean people that you couldn't find, they're not tracking with you, they're not engaged, they're just kind of gone. 'Cause that's been what's happened in a lot of the church of North America. Cultural Christianity kind of going by the wayside. And you kind of think to yourself, man, this is not good because already, as the church of Jesus Christ, we were way outnumbered by the world that we live in and by a nation that is not walking with God. And now it seems like the odds are even worse. Yep. So what? Maybe the God that we serve has said, I'm gonna thin this out for you a little bit, because I'm about to do something that only I am going to get the credit for. But I don't know. Just a thought. Let me show you a fifth truth. Courageous faith uses God's weapons, not those of the world. Courageous faith uses God's weapons, not those of the world. So here's what God does, it's really, really beautiful. Gideon is going to have to now actually act out on leading Israel up against the Midianites, but he's only got 300 now, right? He had an army of 32,000, got cut down to 10,000, got cut down to 300, and now he's gonna have to actually physically lead them into the battle against the Midianites. And he's probably really nervous about that as you would be, as I am, just thinking about it, right? Here's what God says, he says, Hey, I'm gonna give you some encouragement, Gideon. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to sneak down to the camp of Midian and I want you to listen in on what they're talking about. So he goes down and he sneaks down there and he listens in what they're talking about. You know what they were talking about? This dream that they had. Oh man, we got run over and it was Gideon. And Gideon listens to that and he's like, let's go. God just gives him some encouragement. Notice what happens, "When Gideon heard the dream and its interpretation, he bowed down and worshiped God. And he returned to the camp of Israel and he called out, get up, the Lord has given the Midianite camp into your hands and dividing the 300 men into three companies, he placed trumpets and empty jars in the hands of all of them." Not bows and arrows, no swords, trumpets and empty jars. "In the hands of all of them with torches inside. What? What? "What watch me, he told them, follow my lead. When I get to the edge of the camp, do exactly as I do. When I, and all who are with me, blow our trumpets. Then from all around the camp, blow yours and shout for the Lord and for Gideon. Gideon and the 100 men with him reached the edge of the camp. And at the beginning of the middle watch, just after they had changed the guard. And they blew their trumpets and broke the jars that were in their hands. And the three companies blew the trumpets and smashed the jars and grasping the torches in their left hands and holding in their right hands, the trumpets they were to blow, they shouted, a sword for the Lord and for Gideon. And while each man held his position around the camp, all the Midianites ran, crying out as they fled." What just happened? This is astonishing, because what we're reminded of is that courageous faith uses God's weapons, not the world's weapons. They didn't have any swords. 300 of them beat 135,000, and they didn't have a bow and arrow or a sword among them. You know what they had, here's what they defeated them with, faith, and trumpets, and little glass bowls, and some torches. It's absolutely astonishing. Can I remind you of something? You think maybe you could let go for a moment of thinking that political power is what you need to be able to accomplish what God wants. You think you can let go of thinking that you have to have all the wealth so that you've got the money to make the wheels of power turn. You think you can let go of the idea that you have to have vast numbers so that you can overwhelm everyone else. We don't need any of those things. What we need is God. We need God. We don't need the weapons of world. We need the weapons that God has given us. Faith, prayer, trust, obedience. Didn't Paul tell the church at Corinth this very thing? Listen to what he said in 2 Corinthians 10. "I beg you that when I come, I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be towards some people who think that we live by the standards of this world. For though we live in the world, we don't wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds." Yeah, tell me about it, Gideon. Gideon testifies to the truth that Paul is writing about. And isn't it astonishing that Paul, earlier, by the way earlier in his letter to Corinth, that he made this statement that in light of what Gideon has done makes more sense to us. "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God and not from us." They broke their vessels and God was going to demonstrate that it was his power at work among them, not Israelites' power. The same is true for you and I, brothers and sisters, when we allow for this jar to be broken, what comes out of it is the very presence of God, because the all surpassing glory is God's presence in us, not we ourselves. This is a beautiful story, but it's actually a signpost. You see the story of Gideon really happened, really true, really a story about courageous faith, but it's actually a story in microcosm that's teaching us the bigger story of the story of the good news of Jesus Christ. In fact, the Old Testament writers hinted at this, and we should have picked up on the clue. Often when we're reading about the birth of the Messiah, who's come to save us and to rescue us and to deliver us, to be our great deliverer. We sometimes read these passages over and over and over again, like in Isaiah chapter nine at Christmas time, we read it over and over and over again. But do you know in the context how that starts? Stay with me. Verse four, "For as in the day of Midian's defeat," oh, "You have shattered the yolk that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor. Every warrior's boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire. For to us, a child is born , to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders and he'll be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace, of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end." Do you realize that in the context of the author of Isaiah telling us about the prophecy of the coming Messiah, our great deliverer, he used Midian's defeat as the backdrop. Because, when Jesus came, just like Gideon, he was viewed as a nobody from nowhere. Born to a teenage mother, betrothed to a husband, not even yet married, born in a backwater town of which nothing really significant was supposed to have happened there. And yet there he is. The one that everybody said may be a nobody from nowhere, that God said, this is my mighty warrior. And as he grew in wisdom and in strength and in favor with God and man, he began to do all that God called him to do. He said yes to God, with courageous faith. And even tore the idolatry of the world he was living in to rebuild the recognition of the kingdom of God. Crowds started following him. And there were plenty of them to begin. They thinned out. Many of them now weren't following him. And in fact, even the 12 that were at the core, didn't even show up to the cross when Jesus made his way there. But Jesus did not need the weapons of this world. He went to a cross to die for the sins of the world. And he rose from the grave by the power of God. And here Jesus is with courageous faith in the father and without a worldly weapon, he defeated the legions of hell. This is the good news of the gospel. And you know what the gospel does? The gospel calls us to a courageous faith in Jesus Christ. That's what it does. It calls us to a courageous faith in Jesus Christ. Here's why. Faith takes courage. But he who lives in me has already walked that road. And he has courageously trusted his father at every step. That's why you and me, no matter where we come from, no matter what our background is, no matter if we're a nobody from nowhere. If we have Christ living in us, he gives us the courage to be able to say yes to the father even when it's scary, This is the beautiful call of the gospel. His life can lead us there. So let me ask you this, how do you respond to that? How do you respond to that? What does it look like to take courageous faith and respond? Let me ask you. Maybe you need courageous faith to say, I need to talk to that friend who needs Jesus. God, you've actually kind of prodded my heart on a couple of occasions about that. And I've never really done that, but I know that friend of mine and I want him to know Jesus, and maybe I need courageous faith, God, would you help me with that? Or maybe it's a family member. And I know it can be hard to talk to good friends and talk to family members about Jesus and about knowing Christ. But if not you, then who? God's placed you in their lives, God's called us to that. Maybe God is calling us to tear down some of the lies that we have built in our own lives, about who we are. Some of the lies that we have received. You could never be, you could never do, and start listening to what God says, and embrace what God says about us. Not in pride, not in vanity, but just trusting God, that he knows us better than we know ourselves. Maybe God's calling you to trust him with your resources and your stuff. And you've never really started doing that. You've never really trusted God with your giving and with your resources. But God's saying I want you to do that, I want you to trust me. I own the cattle on 1000 hills. Maybe God's saying, I know that you get scared and you think that you have to be fearless before you can take the step of faith. I'm asking you to trust me even when you're scared. Maybe God's saying, I know the odds are against you. I know that what I'm asking you to do, it feels like the odds are stacked against you. But I want you to remember that me plus absolutely nothing is all I need. Maybe God's saying, I want you to put down your power and your control and your desire to have to control everything, I want you to put it down and show humility and dependence and trust in me as I do what I'm going to do. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. Courageous faith, I told you, faith takes courage.