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Finding your strength

Judges 6: 1–16

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 27 Nov, 2005

YOU WANT to have power, don’t you? Of course, we all have power, even if we don’t know it. I know a man who can totally control the conversation in a room full of people, yet he feels powerless to deal with a stroppy salesperson. He has power he doesn’t feel.

As they say in Grow, “Go by what you know, not by what you feel.” Today we’ll see that Gideon’s power was not a matter of feeling powerful, but of being powerful.

Power itself is not bad — it is neutral. God made everything and it was all good. The issue is what we use it for.

Not everyone uses power constructively. Was it Wonder Woman? Or Xena, the Warrior Princess? — who said she would only use her power for good and not for evil?

Today I’m talking about power given into the hands of Jesus. Lord Acton said, “All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Unless our power is God’s power, used for his kingdom purposes, it will become corrupt and, ultimately, it will be demonic.

Gideon shows how anyone lacking self–confidence and a sense of personal power can still be a real force for good in the world.

Gideon is a loser; a loser who leads a bunch of losers into one of history’s iconic victories.

Here’s the story. Israel did evil, and fell under oppression again. For seven years, Israel fell under the hand of the Midianites.

The Midianites didn’t come to settle or trade, but to plunder, rape and pillage. They were desert people who came in raiding parties into Palestine. They carried off what they could, and destroyed what they couldn’t carry. They didn’t care about the people in the land. They didn’t even want to drive the people away and take over what they had built. They saw Palestine as an unguarded supermarket. They could loot whatever was not nailed down.

But the Lord’s Angel came and told Gideon to lead an army against the Midianites, to drive them out, and restore peace to the people.

Gideon called an army to himself, and God said, “You have too many!” So Gideon sent everyone home who was afraid to fight. Then God said, “You still have too many!” so Gideon chose those who were alert, who picked up water in their hand and lapped, rather than those who knelt down and drank straight from the stream.

And with those 300 men, with clay jugs, trumpets and burning torches, he routed the Midianites and their Amalekite allies, and the land was freed from oppression.

But I don’t so much want to focus on “The sword of Yahweh and of Gideon.” I want to focus on how a frightened, uncertain young man got to be such a great leader in Israel.

But what was it that had robbed him of a sense of power?

POWER LOSSES

The fact is, we don’t really know. There is only one clue, and that is that Gideon’s father was a pretty tough chap. A mob wanted to kill Gideon for tearing down their idols, but Gideon’s father faced them down.

Fathers who are so tough sometimes have sons who never feel they can measure up. Dad has power, kid doesn’t. Power is relational.

A child who learns helplessness will never feel powerful. If adults always do everything for it, the child thinks, “I am incompetent.” That weakens a child’s sense of self and of power.

Excessive discipline also teaches a child, “You can only do what others say you can do.” The parents are saying, “It doesn’t matter what you feel, what matters is how I feel.”

Some parents put their child down. This doesn’t teach morality or humility. It teaches the child incompetence and fearfulness. The more a child is put down, the more worthless it feels.

In God’s sight, we are unworthy, but never worthless. Our worth, our value, is the value of Christ himself. That is the price that God paid for each one of us.

So we can guess, but we don’t precisely know what gave Gideon the poor view of himself that you see in his answer to the Angel.

The angel says,

“Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”

and Gideon replies,

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

He has very little self esteem or sense of power.

And that’s consistent throughout the story.

SOLUTIONS 1 – RECEIVING A CALL

The beginning of Gideon’s recovery is a call from God.

JDG 6:11 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 winepress to keep it from the Midianites. ¹² When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.”

I can’t give you a call — only God can. But are you listening for God to speak to you? He has a ministry, a purpose, for each of us.

Doesn’t the Bible teach that all believers are are ministers? Are there different classes of Christianity? Of course not!

As a pastor, I am called, which just means that I listened when God wanted something done, just like you can. When the Reformation broke, it liberated people. It taught that every believer had a calling, that you can be called to being a labourer as much as to being a missionary. But we need to go further. The Bible says that we all have a calling to minister as well, a ministry that is different for each of us.

There was couple who were members of the Assemblies of God church in Petersham. The man had retired, and he and his wife went as houseparents with a Youth With a Mission team. And, in their late 60s, they discovered their own calling and ministry.

On Sundays, they took a minibus to pick up really severely disabled people around the Petersham area and bring them to church.

Most of these people could not speak. Those who could speak couldn’t understand singing. But they loved the music at the church. They would stand there making a joyful noise to the Lord, clapping, swaying, absolutely delighted.

After the singing, the couple, with some helpers, took them out for their own special session, where they heard simple Bible stories, looked at pictures, and got lots of hugs and nice things.

The husband died, and the wife eventually retired. But their ministry is speaking to you and me today.

The world is full of ministries. When God calls you, you will feel just like Gideon. You will say, “I am the least in my family.”

But it will begin to dawn on you — “God has a plan for me. He really does!”

Have you ever seen The Blues Brothers? When the brothers felt they were on a mission from God, their lives began to change. It gave them a sense of purpose.

When you can realise, “God must see some potential in me that I don’t see,” that call makes an incredible difference!

SOLUTIONS 2: RECEIVING CONFIRMATION

It is one thing to have a sense that God has called you; it is another to be sure of it. Gideon was just like you and me: he thought he must have been dreaming. Or that the angel was!

Some people think that it is unspiritual to seek confirmation. They feel they should just go on impressions.

A young chap wanted to be a missionary. He kept telling God that he wanted a call, but he also kept telling God what he wanted to be called to do. God tends not to answer us if we know already what we want him to say.

The chap was finally pretty frustrated, and he told God, “I want to know where I should go as a missionary, because that’s what I want to be called into. When I finish praying, whatever I first see when I open my eyes show me where where you are sending me. Amen.”

So he opened his eyes, and saw a man going past eating brazil nuts.

It’s good that he wasn’t eating a Mars Bar!

If we think God is calling us, we need confirmation. But it has to be a realistic confirmation of a genuine call.

Gideon must have pushed God’s patience, because he needed more than just one proof.

JDG 6:20 The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And Gideon did so. ²¹ With the tip of the staff that was in his hand, the angel of the LORD touched the meat and the unleavened bread. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel of the LORD disappeared. ²² When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the LORD, he exclaimed, “Ah, Sovereign LORD! I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face!”

A little later, Gideon asked God to make a piece of fleece wet with dew when the ground around it was dry. God gave him that sign, too.

But Gideon still wasn’t sure, so he asked for one more proof — that the piece of fleece would be dry when all the ground around it was wet. And God even gave him that sign.

I wouldn’t be quite that pushy with God. But I’d still want confirmation in most cases.

I’ve told you before how God confirmed my call when I first heard it as I was walking up Pitt Street on my way to work one morning in 1964. I’ve told you how he confirmed that call again in 1982 when he renewed the call. Sometimes it’s someone saying, “I see such and such a ministry for you.” Sometimes it’s like the woman who prayed so specifically for me when she knew nothing about my spiritual struggle, or it’s like the friend who knew that I would one day be a pastor, though I never told her I’d though of it.

But very often it’s just that, at each step, the doorway opens easily for you to go through.

I applied about 10 weeks after the closing date for applications for College, and they made a special exemption for me. They told me I would have to go into training as a private student and pay my own way, because there was no opportunity for the Committee to consider my application before College started. But someone withdrew his application and I was fitted in — and approved!

God will confirm it in some way if his call is genuine. Watch for the confirmation. When God calls, he empowers, and he gives you enough confidence in that power, that you will be able to carry out the task he has given you. His confirmation empowers us.

SOLUTIONS 3: PRIORITIES IN ACTION

Before Gideon had to drive out the Midianites, he had to drive out the paganism which had let Midian gain the upper hand.

It’s great to be called by God. That calling may come as a word you can’t avoid, or it might come as a situation you feel you must act on for Jesus’ sake.

This is the point where you absolutely must start taking steps to get your priorities right. God has to be in charge, and all our pagan idols have to be broken down.

Once you start to follow God into your new calling, Satan will throw everything he has at you. And you need to be ready.

As a Pastor, I have sometimes been in risky situations, where I could easily have fallen. Part of the power to avoid the traps was that I had prayed to be delivered from evil, and that I was being enticed down paths I had never before taken, nor have since. If you haven’t built a path to the devil’s door, you will think twice about building one in the day of crisis.

But Israel had gone the way of idolatry. Even Gideon’s own family had gone that way. Had Gideon never lifted his cap as he went past the shrines in the backyard?

There are places in every life where we have built the pathways to the devil’s door, and those pathways are guarded by our idols.

If you leave them there, you will always go back down that path when the going is tough. Pulling them down is called repentance. Uproot the sins of the past! Level with God!

I know it’s hard to do. We have to deal with family and friends who don’t want us to get carried away or go overboard. They don’t mind if we change, as long as nothing is different.

Once you get your priorities in place, once you cut off the unhelpful past ways, you will be free again to act as God shows you, and you will find that God is no person’s debtor. He will bless you and empower you when your priorities are right. As Jesus said,

Seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness...

SOLUTIONS 4: WHAT GIDEON LACKED

There is one thing that you and I have which Gideon didn’t have and couldn’t have, and that is the Holy Spirit’s constant presence.

Paul prayed for the Ephesians, that God might

...strengthen you with might by the Holy Spirit in your inner being.

Jesus told his disciples — which includes you and me —

You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you...

Except when the angel was present with Gideon, or on one occasion when the Spirit came on him, he had no ongoing assurance of God’s presence.

You and I can have a call, we can have that call confirmed, and we can have our priorities right. But we have the icing on the cake as well: the constant presence of the Holy Spirit. As Paul says

If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.

So, if you belong to Jesus by faith in him, then you have the Holy Spirit and all the encouragement and empowerment that he gives a believer. You have that power that comes from relationship — a relationship with God himself. It’s not a feeling of power: it’s the reality of power. And when you discover you have power, you begin to feel more powerful.

Use your great power for good, not for evil!

CONCLUSION:

As we submit ourselves through Christ to God and his purposes; as we discover his call on our life and see that call confirmed; as we get our priorities right before God, then we will discover the Holy Spirit as the ongoing presence of Christ and the source of empowerment to change our world.

Today, Jesus calls us to find the power He gives if we believe. Let’s respond! AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2005. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)