Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Trust God, Abandon Pride
12 Plays8 days ago
Judges 6:1-7:22
Recommended
Transcript
Living without God despite proclamations
00:00:00
Speaker
want to start with a ah question, a probing question this morning for you. Get you thinking a little bit. I would go out on a limb to say most of you sitting there this morning would never say this.
00:00:14
Speaker
You would never say, I don't need God.
00:00:19
Speaker
But many of us live as though we do.
The subtle infiltration of pride
00:00:23
Speaker
Many of us live like we don't need God.
00:00:29
Speaker
We pray after we plan.
00:00:33
Speaker
We thank God after we succeed. We consult god God after we've already committed.
00:00:41
Speaker
We seek His endorsement, not His direction.
00:00:46
Speaker
We begin slowly and gradually to believe that somehow the outcomes of our lives are the products of our own doing or our own competence.
00:00:58
Speaker
for our own preparation, or we but you stuck it out long enough and then therefore that's why we're successful.
00:01:08
Speaker
Slowly, gradually, pride slips in.
Preacher's introspection on pride
00:01:18
Speaker
You ever notice pride rarely announces itself loudly?
00:01:23
Speaker
It whispers
00:01:29
Speaker
And by proxy, what that really means is God doesn't have this because you have it. And we're all guilty of it. So while I preach to you today, I'm preaching to myself.
00:01:45
Speaker
That even those of us with the best intentions, with the right motivations, somehow pride often just creeps in. and we say, it's a little bit less about God and it's a little bit more about me.
Introduction to Gideon's story as a lesson on pride
00:02:00
Speaker
It's little bit more about you. Our passage this morning in Judges chapter 6 and 7 confronts this whisper of pride that that you have it.
00:02:10
Speaker
You have it all done by yourself. It confronts that whisper head on. Many of you have heard this story before. This is the trouble, I'll be completely transparent, with teaching on a story like Gideon.
00:02:25
Speaker
because you've heard it a thousand times. I was reminded by somebody of this last week, oh, I've taught that lesson before. I can't wait to hear your sermon.
00:02:38
Speaker
Can I challenge you this morning just to to put what you already thought you knew about Gideon in the back somewhere? It's not a story about courage. Courage.
00:02:52
Speaker
Somehow Gideon learning courage or becoming confident. For some reason that's the go-to Bible lesson that you always hear. Friends, this story that we're going to hear today is about God dismantling your pride and my pride.
00:03:09
Speaker
So that he receives all the glory.
00:03:14
Speaker
And it's unmistakable that he is the one at the center of everything that happens. It's a fantastic story. I love this story. It's intriguing. It's captivating. It's honest. It's revealing. But this morning, it should be convicting to you and to me.
The cyclical nature of sin in Judges
00:03:33
Speaker
Because we all struggle with pride. Now, I know it's been a minute since we've been in the book of Judges. And I love the holiday season. I want you to know, I'm not against preaching and teaching the Christmas story during December, but boy, doesn't it make it hard to come back to Judges.
00:03:52
Speaker
And you're like, where were we? What have we been studying the last couple of months? Well, let me give you a helpful reminder in the form of an acronym. S-O-R-D.
00:04:06
Speaker
Remember I told us this many, many, many weeks ago. When you get to the book of Judges, that's the first thing I want you to remember. S-O-R-D. It stands for sin, oppression, repentance, deliverer or deliverance.
00:04:24
Speaker
S-O-R-D.
Israel's repentance and God's faithfulness
00:04:26
Speaker
It's the cycle that we see over and over and over and over and over in the book of Judges.
00:04:37
Speaker
God's people sinning. then he oppresses them. He allows, or He causes, for some of you who rather hear that word, He causes the enemies to come in and oppress His people so that they cry out in repentance, Lord, save us.
00:04:55
Speaker
And He indeed sends a deliverer, a judge. That's why the book of Judges is named the book of Judges.
00:05:05
Speaker
Thankfully, as you turn to chapter 6 with me, this is exactly the way chapter 6 starts. What does chapter 6 verse 1 say? Well, it says the Israelites did evil in the Lord's sight.
00:05:18
Speaker
So the Lord handed them over to the Midianites for seven years. there's There's the oppression, right? So we have the people doing wrong, they're sinning. The end of verse 1 says, so he hands them over, or he has caused the Midianites to oppress them for seven years.
00:05:35
Speaker
Now listen to verse 2. This is the the Midianites, for those of you who who are unfamiliar with them in the Bible. The Midianites were so cruel that the Israelites made hiding places for themselves in the mountains, the caves, and the strongholds.
00:05:51
Speaker
Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, marauders from Midian and Amalek and the people of the east would attack Israel, camping in the land and destroying the crops as far as god They left the Israelites with nothing to eat, taking all the sheep, the goats, the cattle, and the donkeys.
00:06:09
Speaker
These enemy hordes coming with their livestock and tents were as thick as locusts. Just picture that in your mind for a second. They arrived on droves of camels, too numerous to count, and they stayed until the land was stripped bare.
00:06:23
Speaker
And so Israel was was reduced to starvation by the Midianites. And here's here's the crying out. Here's the repentance. Then Israel cried out to the Lord for help.
00:06:35
Speaker
Verse 7, And when they cried out to the Lord because of Midian, the Lord sent a prophet to the Israelites. And he said, This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. I brought you up out of slavery in Egypt. I rescued you from the Egyptians and from all those who opposed you.
00:06:51
Speaker
I drove out your enemies and I gave you their land. I told you, I am the Lord your God and you must not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you now live. But you have not listened to me.
00:07:07
Speaker
S-O-R-D.
00:07:12
Speaker
Sin by the people of God in the land in which he had given it to them. They were worshipping idols.
00:07:25
Speaker
He gives them over. He causes the Midianites to come in and it says they were thick as locusts. You ever seen locusts on TV? Hordes of locusts fly in and they just devour everything. It says that they stripped the land bare.
00:07:39
Speaker
Israel had nothing to eat. Israel, it's so bad for them, they go and hide in caves. And they cry out to the Lord. And he sends them a deliverer.
00:07:50
Speaker
Actually, he sends them a prophet first. It's little bit different. S-O-R-P, maybe we could say this morning. SORP. But I don't want you to write that down. That will confuse you later on.
00:08:04
Speaker
He sends a prophet to the prophet. He's speaking on behalf of the Lord. And he reveals Israel's greatest problem. And it's not the Midianites.
00:08:18
Speaker
It's that they've misplaced their trust in the Lord.
Gideon's skepticism and divine assurance
00:08:22
Speaker
It says verse 10. Your translation may say... He has not obeyed my voice. You may not have listened to me.
00:08:32
Speaker
Dr. Curavilla reminds us that the book of Judges, even though it's labeled Judges, it's not really about the judges. It's not about these heroic deliverers.
00:08:45
Speaker
It's about a faithful God who rescues an unfaithful people. Again and again they keep falling into this cycle. S-O-R-D. And this faithful God continues to step in and rescue an unfaithful people.
00:09:03
Speaker
He delivers. God is the deliverer. But he uses these people like we studied. Ehud, Deborah, and this morning we're going to see Gideon. But make no Doubt. God is the Deliverer.
00:09:17
Speaker
Capital D. He is the one in charge. He is the one in the business of rescuing. Perhaps you're here this morning and you're in that situation where you need rescuing. If that's the case, pay close attention.
00:09:30
Speaker
Now let's listen to how Gideon is introduced. Look at me, verse 11. It says, Then the angel Lord came and sat beneath the great tree at ah Orphra,
00:09:43
Speaker
which belonged to Joash and the clan Bezer. Gideon, the son of Joash, was threshing wheat at the bottom of the winepress to hide the grain for the Midianites.
00:09:54
Speaker
And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and he said, Mighty hero, the Lord is with you. Now if you don't really understand what's going on, let me explain the picture here. and and In all fairness, the New Living Translation doesn't do a great job with with verse 11, so I want to kind of tailor it just a little bit for you.
00:10:14
Speaker
The end of verse 11 says in the New Living Translation, Gideon the son of Joash was threshing wheat at the bottom of the wine press to hide the grain.
00:10:26
Speaker
in parentheses it's really to hide himself from the Midianites. He's threshing the wheat at the bottom hiding himself and so it's almost with irony that the angel Lord comes and says hey you mighty hero the Lord is with you.
00:10:48
Speaker
You mighty hero even though you're hiding down here in the winepress.
00:10:54
Speaker
why Why is that important for us to know that? Well I think God uses all sorts of us in all sorts of situations. You may
Gideon's quest for signs and God's patience
00:11:04
Speaker
be hiding right now from God.
00:11:07
Speaker
I can't be used by God. He can use you too, just where you're at. He tells Gideon here, you're a mighty hero of God. What? Follow me with the end of verse, beginning of verse 12, the angel the Lord appeared to him and he says, the mighty hero of the Lord is with you, to which you would think Gideon would say, oh my gosh, thanks Lord for being with me.
00:11:32
Speaker
Thank you, Lord, for your presence with me. But look how Gideon responds, verse 13. Gideon replied almost with skepticism here. He starts with the word if, not thanks.
00:11:49
Speaker
He says, verse 13, if the Lord is with us, then why has all this happened to us? Where all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn't they say the Lord brought us up out of Egypt?
00:12:02
Speaker
But then now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites?
00:12:07
Speaker
Those of you who were with me Wednesdays during the Red Sea rolls, this should prick your ears a little bit. he's He's saying something very similar to what Moses was experiencing, right?
00:12:20
Speaker
Hey, we we got brought all the way out of Egypt, out of slavery. We're right up to the sea and all the Pharaoh's armies are coming behind us. And what are they saying?
00:12:32
Speaker
Why did you bring us here? We're going to die right here at the sea. Moses, what are you doing to us? Well, they're not trusting God's plans.
00:12:44
Speaker
Here, Gideon's the same way. Lord, if you're you're really there with me, why is all this happening? Why have you allowed the Midianites to do what they're doing to us?
00:12:58
Speaker
Why have you caused the Midianites to do what they're doing to us? Why the Midianites?
00:13:07
Speaker
God assures him, however, in verse 14, look. It says, then the Lord turned to him and he said, go with the strength that you have and rescue Israel from the Midianites because I am sending you.
00:13:20
Speaker
The Lord is sending him.
00:13:24
Speaker
You would think he would say, yes, yes, Lord, thanks for your presence. I'm ready to go to battle. You're with me. Who could be against me? But how does he respond?
00:13:35
Speaker
Look with me. insecure, and self-focused. How can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family.
00:13:49
Speaker
walk walk walk Right?
00:13:56
Speaker
God's promise is not, Gideon, you'll be strong. The promise I will be with you. My presence, the Lord says, I will be with you.
God's strategy to dismantle pride through Gideon's army
00:14:09
Speaker
It has nothing to do with Gideon's potential. It has everything to do with God's presence.
00:14:18
Speaker
John Piper says this. He says, God's deliverance is never grounded in our capacity, but in God's covenantal commitment to act for his glory and his glory alone.
00:14:31
Speaker
He goes on and says, just like Moses made all the excuses when God called him into service, Gideon is doing the same thing. So I ask you this morning, maybe this is you.
00:14:43
Speaker
Maybe you're here this morning coming up with an excuse, one after another, of why you can't do what God has called you to do.
00:14:53
Speaker
Maybe you're looking for a sign. God, if you'll just give me a sign, then I will step up and serve on the property committee. Lord, if if there'll be an empty parking spot, the third one from the left when I get here this morning, that'll be your sign that I should help out with the property committee.
00:15:14
Speaker
I'm not saying the property committee needs your help.
00:15:21
Speaker
It has nothing really to do about you or your capabilities or your incapabilities. It has everything to do with God's capabilities.
00:15:31
Speaker
Gideon asks for sign after sign after sign. You know the story. This is why I kind of wanted you to take it and chunk it in the back where you don't remember all the details. But you know he asks for fire from a rock, verse 20.
00:15:46
Speaker
He goes, Gibby, here's a ah ah wet fleece. put it on dry ground. That's the first, second test, right? Lord, if you'll just show yourself true there, then I'll believe. Then I'll trust.
00:15:58
Speaker
To which God does. patiently waits through these tests. All right, how about a dry fleece on wet ground? Let's flip it around. Lord, I want to make sure it's really you. can you Can you show me your faithfulness?
00:16:12
Speaker
You know, put in my notes, and I don't do this often, but it's a reminder to myself. I put, how dare he How dare the creature the creator? dare the creature test creator?
00:16:26
Speaker
Who are you, pottery, to question the potter?
00:16:33
Speaker
I often think sometimes God could just have responded that way. Who do you think you are? But he doesn't do that. He's patient. He's kind.
00:16:46
Speaker
He listens. He meets Gideon right where he's at. Right there in his doubts, right there in his fears. Right. He meets them exactly there, and he can meet you at that exact same place this morning.
00:17:00
Speaker
If you're here doubting, if you're here in fear or uncertainty, or if you're dealing with depression or anxiety, he knows exactly where you are, and he can meet you right there.
00:17:12
Speaker
He just simply wants you to call upon his name. All right, let's get to the good stuff, shall we? Chapter 7, flip over to chapter 7. Chapter 7 really is the heart of this passage. It's the theological core of what I really want to get at, but but we have to kind of figure out where Gideon's at first so that when we get to chapter 7 it makes sense. here's Here's the big picture as you turn to chapter 7. I'm going give you kind of the overall picture and then i'm go look at a few verses.
00:17:44
Speaker
We've got a lot of verses to cover by the way today. That's why I'm trying to be selective. Here's the big picture. Gideon has gone to several other tribes and he's gathered about 32,000 his own soldiers.
00:17:56
Speaker
Now verse 12 says, look with me, chapter 7, verse 12, the armies of Midian and Amalek and the people of the east had settled in the valley like a swarm of locusts.
00:18:08
Speaker
Their camels were like grains of sand on the seashore. There were too many to count. Camels without number, basically. And if you were to flip over to chapter 8, verse 2, which just gives us a little bit more detail...
00:18:21
Speaker
it tells us there's roughly about 135,000 of the enemy. so here's the picture. Gideon's got The got too many warriors with Gideon.
00:18:34
Speaker
god at is wisdom says in verse two chapter seven you have too many warriors with you geton
00:18:46
Speaker
If I let all of you fight the Midianites and the Israelites will boast to me that they've saved themselves by their own strength. To prevent that from happening, God says in his wisdom, I'm to perform a military reduction in force.
00:19:04
Speaker
I'm going to take your 32,000 I'm going to shrink it to 10,000. And then I'm going to take that 10,000 300 guys.
00:19:14
Speaker
now While it's not recorded here, i bet you Gideon is saying this. Say what?
00:19:25
Speaker
Come again? Lord, I didn't hear you
Divine intervention in Gideon's victory
00:19:29
Speaker
that way. Did you say a reduction? 32,000 to 10,000 to 300,000.
00:19:38
Speaker
to ten thousand to three hundred
00:19:43
Speaker
Brothers sisters, it's not a military tactic that God's doing here. It's a theological act. God is doing this on purpose. He's engineering weakness so that human pride has no room to breathe and that his divine glory has no rival.
00:20:03
Speaker
He's not merely going to give victory to Gideon, which he will, but he's going to control the narrative of who gets the credit for that victory.
00:20:13
Speaker
God knows us, humanity, intimately.
00:20:22
Speaker
And if I can say this with all the pastoral love that I can muster up this morning, he knows you will screw it up. And he knows I will screw it up. He knows us that way.
00:20:36
Speaker
and he knows that if he gives us just a little bit of room, we'll start to take credit for that victory.
00:20:45
Speaker
Pride rarely announces itself loudly. But it whispers, you've got this.
00:20:54
Speaker
And so with 300 men, Gideon, still being afraid, goes. God sends him to overhear this dream.
00:21:07
Speaker
It's a fantastic dream, by the way. Look at chapter 7, verse 13.
00:21:17
Speaker
Gideon crept up just as a man was telling his companion about a dream. The man said, I had had this dream, and in the dream there was this loaf of barley bread that came tumbling down into the Midianite camp. And he hit a tent, he turned it over, and he knocked it flat. And his companion answered, Your dream can only mean one thing. Which, by the way, I'm not really sure how he got this interpretation.
00:21:36
Speaker
I'm just going tell you that from a from a loaf of barley bread rolling down a hill. This is the answer he gets. God has given Gideon, son of Joash, his life, victory over the Midianites and all the allies.
00:21:50
Speaker
And when Gideon heard the dream and its interpretation, he bowed down and worshipped before the Lord and he returned to the Israelite camp and he shouted, this is what he tells his people now, right? His 300 men. Get up!
00:22:02
Speaker
get up For the Lord has given you victory over the Midianites. He divided the 300 men into three groups and gave each of these men the ram horn and a clay jar and a torch that goes with it.
00:22:19
Speaker
And it's the strangest victory battle in all of the Bible. i can If I could just sum it up that way. It's really no battle at all.
00:22:30
Speaker
There's no swords. There's
00:22:33
Speaker
Gideon's army has no swords. There's no strategy. But what they do have is torches, jars, and a trumpet.
00:22:46
Speaker
But he says, get up with me and let's go. Without a strategy, without a plan, without swords.
00:22:58
Speaker
Let's go because there's going to be victory today.
00:23:04
Speaker
Victory does come, brothers and sisters, in the most fantastic way. The Lord confuses the enemy, and what does the enemy do? They start running around crazy, stabbing each other, as Gideon's clan just blows a bunch of trumpets and breaks a few jars.
00:23:23
Speaker
It's the strangest of stories, but what it lets us know is the victory came through no help of Gideon or his army. The victory came from God himself and only God.
00:23:41
Speaker
I love this. said the the The Lord sent every man's sword against his comrade. This was the enemy. Can you imagine the confusion going on in that camp? What are all these trumpets being blown?
00:23:55
Speaker
Mind you, it's only 300 guys, but somehow they're blowing these trumpets and God has confused this enemy so much so they're stabbing each other. And it gets so out of hand that whoever's left, they just surrender.
00:24:07
Speaker
and ah And I put a note to myself, when God's in the mix and God's in control and we step back and we stop trying to take credit for what He's doing, He does fantastic things. And sometimes it makes no sense to us.
00:24:20
Speaker
But He gets all the victory. And He gets all the glory.
00:24:26
Speaker
It's a picture of what surrender looks like. Victory comes through our surrender. It doesn't come through anything that you and I do.
The resurgence of pride post-victory
00:24:34
Speaker
He doesn't say, Gideon, get up, and you guys go fight in your own strength, and you guys are going to win this battle. And that would have been fantastic if 300 men had beaten 135,000 troops on their own strength, but that's not what happened.
00:24:48
Speaker
God did this. God's in the business of restoring. God's in the business of giving us victory. And he does that, brothers sisters, is that you and i don't take credit for it, that we give him all the credit.
00:25:02
Speaker
But sometimes we get these victories in life no matter how small they are, and it's our natural fallen tendency to take credit for it.
00:25:13
Speaker
How do I know this? Well, look look how Gideon responds. Verse 17.
00:25:22
Speaker
does How does he respond after they he he divides these 300 men into three groups and he's giving them these ram's horns and clay doors? He says in verse 17, he says, keep your eyes on me.
00:25:35
Speaker
Not on the Lord. Gideon's telling his men, hey, you guys, there's going to be a great battle. It's going be a great victory. You guys just watch watch me and watch what I'm going to do.
00:25:45
Speaker
By the way, I'm just going to be completely transparent. I have sat in on many ministry meetings throughout my ministry time, and I've heard stuff like this. Boy, I can't, you know, all for the glory of God, but you know what I did last week?
00:26:02
Speaker
I, I, I.
00:26:08
Speaker
We've got to be real careful, brothers sisters, even with the best of intentions. Our pride likes to slip in and take credit. Look what I'm doing. Look at me. Keep your eyes on me. When I come to the edge of the camp, just do what I do, he says.
00:26:24
Speaker
And as soon as I and those with me blow the ram's horn, you blow your ram's horn too and all the the entire camp. And look what they shout. For the Lord and for Gideon.
00:26:36
Speaker
What? When did the Lord say to do that? Hades rushing to battle. and cry out for the Lord and for yourself.
00:26:48
Speaker
What's worse, look at verse 20. Gideon, the leader, full of pride, has now caused his soldiers to respond in the same way.
00:27:00
Speaker
A sword for the Lord and for Gideon.
00:27:06
Speaker
And we should be asking ourselves, what? Gideon, what? How did he insert himself into this picture, into this victory? He wants a piece of limelight.
00:27:17
Speaker
My last pastor at our previous church used to always say this and it always stuck with me. He said you can do anything at this church as long as you don't need to take credit for it. Because as soon as you take credit for it, that's your pride being interjected.
00:27:36
Speaker
What is pride? It's question I put to you and to me. I want you to write this down as a note because it's something I wrote down many years ago and it's something that has so impacted the way I think of God's glory and how it relates to pride. As soon as pride creeps into our lives, we rob God of his glory.
00:27:59
Speaker
And I know none of you want to do that this morning. None of you actively woke up this morning and thought yourself, I can't wait to rob God of some of his glory. But when we start to take credit for ourselves and pride slips in, that's exactly what happens.
Embracing humility and acknowledging God's role
00:28:15
Speaker
That promotion you got
00:28:19
Speaker
and you tell somebody, look what I did in not so many terms. Look what I did to deserve this. You're robbing God of his due glory.
00:28:32
Speaker
This story, which is often framed this way, and I've seen it in many children's Bible lessons. Just be brave like Gideon. That's what they surmise from this story.
00:28:46
Speaker
It's not saying be brave like Gideon. It's saying stop trusting in what you bring to the battle. Stop trusting in yourself.
00:28:58
Speaker
It assumes God is helpful but he's not necessary.
00:29:06
Speaker
Is God necessary in your life?
00:29:10
Speaker
Or is He helpful? Do you go to Him after the fact? After you've already made a commitment? Hey Lord, I'm going to run this by you. See if you'll give me your blessing.
00:29:24
Speaker
I laugh and I smirk because I'm guilty of the same thing.
00:29:29
Speaker
What do we do with this passage today as I look at the time? I wrote this question I keep coming back to it all week long. Where is God reducing your army?
00:29:40
Speaker
Meaning, where is he forcing you to rely on himself instead of yourself?
00:29:49
Speaker
That success you quietly take credit for.
00:29:54
Speaker
The talents that you trust more than his power and his prayer for you and your life. It's so easy to put our all of our trust in our own talents?
00:30:09
Speaker
How about the plans you make without dependence on Him?
00:30:15
Speaker
How about that job you're thinking of taking? That move you're thinking of making? Have you consulted Him first?
00:30:28
Speaker
God may not remove your abilities, but He may strip away the illusions that you have about them.
00:30:36
Speaker
God did not choose Gideon because he was strong. God made Gideon weak so Israel would remember who actually saves. And that's God and God alone.
00:30:49
Speaker
He invites you and I this morning as we hear this story to lay down our pride. Not so that he can humiliate you.
00:30:59
Speaker
So that he can humble you. There's a difference.
00:31:03
Speaker
And in doing so he sets us free.
00:31:12
Speaker
Boy, it's painful to be humbled sometimes, isn't it? When was the last time you woke up and that was your prayer today? Lord, will you humble me today? Will you strip away my pride?
00:31:24
Speaker
Will you make me dependent upon you today? What a fantastic prayer that would be.