Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

We’ve finally made it to the last message in our series called Heroes. We started this journey nine weeks ago. All summer we’ve been exploring God’s truth as it was lived out in the lives of some incredible heroes in the Old Testament in the Bible.

Last week, we walked around the city of Jericho with Joshua. We discovered how God brings us his victory in his time.

Today, we’re wrapping up with a guy who is probably one of the weakest, most cowardly heroes that we’ll ever meet. And yet, in spite of that, God still used him as a mighty hero.

The man’s name is Gideon. His story is found in the Old Testament book of Judges. We’re going to spend most of our time focusing on a conversation between Gideon and God in Judges 6.

Let’s pray and then we’ll get after it in our final Heroes message.

The story of Gideon takes place in a very rough period in Israel’s history. The Israelites, who were God’s chosen people, had become very wicked. Instead of worshipping the Lord alone, the Israelites were worshipping the false gods of the peoples around them. Because of their sin, God allowed his people to be overthrown by the Midianites. For seven years, the Israelites lived under extreme oppression by the people of Midian. The Midianites destroyed their crops, killed their livestock, and ravaged their cities.

This drove many of the Israelites into hiding. They were forced to live caves and mountain crags to keep out of the sight of the Midianites.

And this is where we meet Gideon. The Lord pays Gideon a visit, and their conversation holds God’s truth for us today.

Judges 6, starting in verse 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.

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

“But sir,” Gideon replied, “if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us?

Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and put 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?”

“But Lord,” Gideon asked, “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 together.” (Judges 6:11-16, NIV)

As we unpack this conversation between the Lord and Gideon, I think we’re all going to see a lot of connecting points with Gideon. There are a lot of similarities between the story of Gideon and the story of most of us.

First of all, like Gideon, we see ourselves as we are.

In a series called Heroes, you would expect our hero to be gathering an army to drive out the Midianite invaders. But that’s not were we meet Gideon. When we meet Gideon, he is threshing wheat in a winepress.

That’s not how it’s usually done. A winepress was located at the bottom of a hill. After the grapes for the wine were picked, they were hauled downhill to the winepress. That makes sense because the grapes would get to be very heavy. Winepresses were built at the bottom of the hills so the harvesters could carry their heavy loads downhill.

But a threshing floor was always built on top of the highest hill available. Threshing wheat created a lot of dust, so threshing floors were built on hilltops so the wind would blow the dust and chaff away.

But our first picture of Gideon is of him threshing wheat, not on a threshing floor, but in winepress. At the bottom of the hill. There was no air getting to him. No wind to blow the dust away. The chaff falls down on top of him. It gets into his clothes, making him itch. The dust cloud is choking him.

But he continues to thresh his wheat down in the winepress…because he is afraid. If he were to go to the hilltop to thresh his wheat, he might be seen by the Midianites. His fear of the Midianites is greater than his frustration of his current working conditions, so he stays where he is.

Not a very heroic start to our story. The first scene is Gideon cowering in fear.

Then God shows up. And God tells Gideon that he is going to be the one to lead Israel against the Midianites. Not surprisingly, Gideon is full of excuses.

Starting in verse 14, “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?”

“But Lord,” Gideon asked, “how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” (Judges 6:14-15, NIV)

Again, not a very heroic picture, is it? God tells Gideon, “I’m going to use you to save the Israelites from Midian.”

And Gideon responds with nothing but excuses as to why he just couldn’t possibly do that. Gideon isn’t a spring chicken anymore. He’s probably middle-aged, well past his prime when it comes to warfare.

He tells God, “My clan is the weakest in Manasseh.” The Israelite tribe of Manasseh was well-known for its military weakness. And Gideon claimed that his clan was the weakest clan in the weakest tribe.

He also informs God that he was the least in his family, meaning he was the youngest of his father’s sons. In this culture, the youngest child was also considered the weakest child.

Excuse after excuse after excuse. God’s plan to use Gideon was ridiculous, and Gideon informed God of just that.

Now, did you notice that all of Gideon’s excuses were true? He was the youngest in his family. His clan and tribe were the weakest in all of Israel. He wasn’t making this stuff up. What he was saying may have been excuses, but they were honest excuses. Gideon saw himself as he was.

And so do we. No one knows your weaknesses better than you do. And for some of us, knowing our weaknesses is the very thing that keeps God from using us.

Last year, Brian and I teamed up to preach a series of messages called, “Confessions of a Pastor.” It was four weeks of us giving everyone an inside peek of how we actually feel, who we actually are.

And one of the confessions we both shared is that we feel completely inadequate. Here’s something I shared, word-for-word, in our Confessions series.

“On the outside, it might look like I’ve got my stuff together. I’m pastor of a growing church. We’ve accomplished more in the past year than most people even dreamed was possible. We’re enjoying some of the best days in the history of our church. So some people look at me and just assume that I must be this talented, creative, and super-spiritual guy. And the truth is I’m scared to death and I’m just hoping that I can hang on for another week. And this isn’t an occasional battle for me. I fight these feelings all the time.”

Nothing has changed. We are still experiencing unbelievable success. God is blessing this church beyond our wildest dreams. These are without a doubt some of the best days in the long history of our church…and I’m still just trying to hang on. I’m still scared to death. I still feel completely inadequate to do what I do.

So I totally get where Gideon was coming from. God called him to do something big, and Gideon took an honest look at himself and said, “No way. I just don’t have it. I don’t have what it takes. I can’t do that.”

If you are honest, I bet you can relate to Gideon, too. You know yourself. You know your weaknesses. You know your shortcomings. You know your sins. Now we often go to great lengths to hide them from other people. We want people to think that we’re better than we are. But at the end of the day, we can’t fool ourselves. We know all our inadequacies, and it’s really easy to allow those shortcomings and weaknesses to keep us from doing anything for God.

Have you ever been in a situation where you knew God was calling you to do something, but you ignored that call because you just knew that you were too inadequate? You just couldn’t do that. You knew yourself too well to believe that you could do what God called you to do.

God’s got an answer for us. It’s the same answer that he gave Gideon. We see ourselves as we are. God sees what we could be.

The story of this year’s Olympic Games has undoubtedly been Michael Phelps. Michael swam last night and won his eighth gold medal of the games, setting a new Olympic record for golds in a single Olympics. He has now won more gold medals than any other Olympian in history.

We look at Michael Phelps and we see the greatest Olympian in history. I don’t think very many of us would have seen that a few years ago, when he was a child who was struggling with ADHD and not doing well at all in school. One of Michael’s teachers told his mom that Michael “couldn’t concentrate on anything.”

Hard to believe now when you see him focus with laser-intensity at the Olympic games. But his beginnings were anything but Olympic-like. Fortunately, Michael had a mom who refused to see her son as he was. She saw what he could be, and she grabbed his gift of swimming with both hands. She used it to teach him how to focus, to discipline himself, and to not allow his difficulties to stop him. Debbie Phelps looked at her son, not as he was, but as he could be.

In our story, look at the first thing the Lord said to Gideon. “When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.” (Judges 6:12, NIV)

Keep in mind where God found Gideon. Threshing wheat in a winepress. Hiding from the Midianites. Choking to death on threshing dust because he was afraid of even being seen by his enemies.

And the Lord looks at him and calls him a “mighty warrior.” How ridiculous is that? It’s completely ridiculous if God could only see who Gideon was. But it makes perfect sense when you consider that God could see what Gideon would become.

This greeting was actually a prophecy. God was prophesying about the leader that Gideon would become.

If you go home today and read the entire story of Gideon in Judges 6-8, you’ll find that this is exactly what Gideon became. God took the coward and transformed him in a great military leader. He took the man of a hundred excuses and turned him into a hero who defeated the Midianites.

I’ve seen this play out so many times in my own life. I was a youth minister for a lot of years, and like every youth minister, I had a few kids in my youth group that would really make me wonder sometimes. I remember Joel, who was a know-it-all punk. I remember Aron, who was only interested in having a good time and didn’t have a serious bone in his body. I remember Tim, who was a nice kid but didn’t seem to care about anything that was spiritual.

You know where they are today? Joel is planting a new church in northern Kentucky. Aron is a worship minister at thriving church in Michigan. And Tim is going to Bible College this fall to study youth ministry.

Aren’t you glad that God doesn’t see us as we are, but instead he sees what we could be?

Now, listen to how God told Gideon to fight against the Midianites. There is an important in how the Lord spoke to Gideon.

“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?” (Judges 6:14, NIV)

Let’s break this verse down a little bit. “The Lord turned to him.” Another translation says, “God faced him directly.” (The Message)

When I want my four-year-old son to really understand something, I kneel down so I can look him in the eye. I don’t do it all the time. Just when what I’m about to say is very important. When Ryan sees me look him right in the eye, he knows that the next words that come out of my mouth are very important and he’d better listen.

God turned and looked Gideon in the eye. Gideon had been rambling on and on, but you get the feeling that when the Lord looked him straight in the eye, he shut up. He was about to hear something that would have a crucial impact on his life.

God looked at him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand.”

All God was asking Gideon to bring was the strength that he had. God knows your strength, but he also knows your weakness. He knows your limits. God sees you as you could be, but he knows what you have right now.

When God calls you to do something, he asks you to bring all you’ve got…but nothing more than that. Go in the strength that you have.

Now, here’s what doesn’t make sense. All God asked of Gideon was for Gideon to bring what he had. But even if Gideon brought all he had to the fight, it still wouldn’t be enough to take down the Midianites.

And that’s how it feels sometimes. God says, “Go do this with what you have,” and you know that what you have is not enough. Look at the last part of the verse.

“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?” (Judges 6:14, NIV)

Gideon had to bring all he had to the fight, but God knew that it wouldn’t be enough. That’s why he reminded Gideon that he was the one sending him. And if God was sending him, then God would strengthen him. If God was sending him, then God would be with him.

God has never called you to do something that you and God couldn’t accomplish together. The mission laid out for Gideon seemed impossible. And on his own, it would have been. But God reminded Gideon that he wasn’t on his own.

God called Gideon a mighty warrior when he was a coward hiding in a winepress. And then he took that coward and changed him into the warrior that he saw all along.

God looks at you and sees what you could be. And one of the beautiful things about following Christ for a long time is that Jesus changes you into the person that he knew you could be all along.

I talk with so many Christians who just feel like they’re total losers. Completely inadequate. As I’ve told you countless times, I struggle with this myself. I know exactly what it feels like.

But whenever I’m talking with somebody who really feels like a spiritual loser, I ask them about what they used to be. What were you like before you gave your life to Christ? How would you describe your life in the early years of your walk with Jesus? Compare that to where you are now.

Almost without exception, the person admits that they are different now than they were back then. They begin to see just how much Jesus has changed them. And instead of feeling like the consummate failure, they see the victory that God has brought to their life.

Let me ask you straight up…if you’ve been following Jesus for a number of years, are you different now than you used to be? Do you see the progress that has been made in your life? Do you see how you’re more like Jesus now than you used to be?

I’m not saying you’ve arrived. If you think you have spiritually arrived, that’s pride. Which is a sin. Which is a subject for another sermon.

You haven’t arrived. But look how far you’ve come. And here’s my question…if God has brought you this far, do you think he’s going to quit on you now?

The Bible reminds us that, “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6b, NIV)

God isn’t a quitter. He finishes what he starts. When he starts a work in your life, he completes it.

In other words, what God originates, God orchestrates. God has a vision for what you could be. And if he originates a work in your, he will orchestrate it. He will deal with the details and he will finish the job.

All he asks from us is a little bit of trust.

At this point in the story, Gideon is still having his doubts. But even in his doubts, there is a microscopic little piece of trust that God grabs onto.

Starting in verse 16, “The LORD answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together.”

Gideon replied, "If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you.”

And the LORD said, “I will wait until you return.”

Gideon went in, prepared a young goat, and from an ephah of flour he made bread without yeast. Putting the meat in a basket and its broth in a pot, he brought them out and offered them to him under the oak.

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. 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.” (Judges 6:16-21, NIV)

Gideon still doubted that this was really God, and that God was really calling him to fight the Midianites. But even in the midst of doubt, a little bit of trust was beginning to develop.

You have to understand the setting of this story. Under the Midianite occupation, many Israelites were starving to death. Midian had destroyed their crops and killed their livestock, bringing a great famine on the land. So it had to be pretty difficult for Gideon to bring this kind of offering to God. A young goat and bread, both of which had grown very scarce. He offered to God what he probably had the least amount of…food. And God accepted the sacrifice by burning it up on the rock.

Even in the midst of all his excuses, all his worries, all his doubts, he displayed just a little bit of trust…and that was all that God needed. That little act of trust was rewarded, and it became the moment that changed Gideon’s life.

God can do a lot with a little bit of trust. Think about this picture from Luke 17. Jesus is teaching his disciples incredibly difficult truths. Truths about forgiveness, truths about sin. Incredibly weighty, hard truths of God.

And finally, his disciples felt like they just couldn’t handle any more.

In Luke 17, “The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5, NIV)

They just couldn’t handle the weight of all these different commands of God. So they cried out, “Lord, we just can’t take any more of this! You got to help us! Increase our faith so we can obey everything you’ve taught us!”

You ever feel like that? You feel like there is so much in the Bible that you’re not living up to. You hear the Word of God preached, and instead of encouraging you, you feel discouraged because your life is such a far cry from what it should be. You wish God would increase your faith, somehow that he would supernaturally make you better.

But look at how Jesus responded to his followers. “The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”

He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.” Luke 17:5-6, NIV)

If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can do incredible things. A mustard seed is usually about 1 millimeter in diameter. In Mark 4, Jesus called the mustard seed “the smallest seed you plant in the ground.” (Mark 4:31, NIV)

The point is that God can do a lot through just a little bit of faith. Just a little bit of trust. Instead of feeling like a loser, instead of feeling like we just need more faith, instead of thinking that we just don’t have what it takes to be what God has called us to be…we need to stop.

God did a lot through Gideon when he displayed just a little bit of trust. Jesus promised that a mustard seed-sized faith is all we need to see God work powerfully in our lives.

Maybe it’s time for you to quit beating yourself up. Maybe it’s time for you to stop feeling like such a scumbag, loser Christian. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be convicted of our sin. And I’m not saying that we should be satisfied with where we are spiritually.

But if you’re just constantly feeling like nothing but a spiritual loser, you need to understand that this isn’t God’s will for your life. Jesus died to set you free from your sin. He didn’t give his life for you just so he could watch you drown in a sea of guilt and self-pity. If you’re constantly focusing on your inadequacies, you never give God a chance to take what you have, however little that is, and do something great with it.

It only takes a little bit of trust for God to turn you into a hero. He did it with Gideon. He can do it with you and me.

Mike Edmisten

Tags: Heroes, faith, Gideon, inadequacy, Judges 6, potential, trust