Gideon: An Unlikely Hero

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Flannel Heroes: A Study in the Book of Judges

Gideon, Unlikely Hero Jeff Jones,

Senior Pastor

Judges 6-8

Today we continue our series in the Old Testament book of Judges, this incredible book that displays this cycle that is common to us as well. 12 cycles and 12 judges, or leaders that God raises up, as they start out serving God faithfully, then fall into sin and idolatry, God allows neighboring armies to come in and subjugate them, causing incredible pain, and then they cry out to God and God raises up a judge to defeat the enemy and then they are all about serving God again—for a while.

Today’s hero is an unlikely hero, a man named Gideon, that no one would have chosen if the nation had a vote. Gideon wouldn’t even have voted for himself. It’s a little like the bedtime stories I told my kids when they were growing up. My dog when I grew up was named Mitzi, and I made up all these stories about Mitzi the Wonder Dog who sprung into action and saved the day. So, there might be some invading army, or some thief breaking in the house, or some natural disaster, and just when all seemed lost, Mitzi the Wonder Dog would spring into action, and in one incredible display of canine power and prowess would save the day somehow. Now, in my boy’s minds, I’m sure they pictured some ferocious breed of dog. I never told them until much later…

Slide: _______________________ ) (Picture of dog standing still)

…that Mitzi was actually a miniature schnauzer.

Even if she did spring into action…

Slide: _______________________ ) (Picture of dog jumping)

…I’m not sure how much would have happened. She was an unlikely hero.

And so was Gideon, and Gideon starts out knowing that. He is a man with a major inferiority complex, as we learn right away. We see early in the story that he considers himself a loser of all losers. He tells God that he is the least of his family, which is the least of all the families of Israel. But God chooses him, because he wants Israel to learn a lesson. A lesson about what it means to depend on God for strength and success, rather than ourselves.

It’s easy for us to use those words, about depending on God, but I think it is hard to live that way. Either we live in fear and insecurity and live small, rather than depend on God to live bigger, or we feel pretty big ourselves and live independently, on our own strength, thinking we are living big while we are in fact living pitifully small. Whatever our tendency, insecurity or self-confidence, each of us has a lot to learn about what it means to live a God-dependent life, and that’s the theme of our story today. So, turn with me to Judges 6, for what is quite a story.

As you are turning there, the nation is once again in deep trouble. The enemy this time is a coalition of all these armies to the East, the biggest named Midian, and they have combined forces to form this huge army that has defeated Israel and is now treating them horribly. Once again, they are afraid to leave their homes, and those farmers who manage to grow crops find the armies raiding and burning them as soon as they grow up. That brings us to Gideon, a farmer, who is threshing wheat, where you’d throw the grain up into the air to allow the wind to separate the wheat from the ;alskjd (chaff?). In this case, he is so scared he’s trying to do it inside a building, this wine press. That’s pretty comical, because you need wind and there is no wind inside. So, I guess he’s trying to blow on it (poof), and at that ridiculous point, God shows up, 6:12:

Slide: _______________________) Judges 6:12 (NIV)

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

Now, we’ll learn later that this angel is no ordinary angel. It’s actually God himself appearing as an angel; it’s Jesus, a pre-incarnate appearance of God the Son. And Jesus looks at him and says, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” I’m sure Gideon looked over his shoulder, because he was not mighty, and he was no warrior. He was so scared he was trying to thresh wheat indoors.

But that’s not what Gideon objects to at first. He has a problem with the idea about God being with them, and in the next few verses complains about that, basically saying, “Hey, if God was with us, then our enemies wouldn’t be holding us down like this. Our lives wouldn’t be like this.” But God doesn’t even respond to that complaint; instead, he just gives him the marching orders in verse 14:

Slide: _______________________) Judges 6:14-15 (NIV)

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.”

(Basically, I’m no mighty warrior, I am a weakling, a loser of losers…but God doesn’t see him that way.)

Slide: _______________________) Judges 6:16 (NIV)

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

God basically says, “It’s not about you. I will be with you. I’m sending you. And I will give you the power to do what I’m asking you to do.” Now, that should have been enough for Gideon. But it’s not. Gideon needs some proof. So, he asks God for a sign, a little miracle to show that this is indeed God. This is going to be a repeated request, and God does a miracle for him in the next verses, and Gideon realizes that this really is God. He builds an altar, worships him, and says, “Ok, I’ll go.” God gives him a quick job to do, to tear down the altars to the false Gods that his family has built, and Gideon does that. Now, it’s time for the big show, to defeat this impossible to defeat enemy. God tells Gideon to muster up and with God’s help, he is able to raise a very large army for Israel, 32,000 troops. Pretty good. 32,000. But Gideon is still not convinced. Gideon is a person who has trouble with this whole going boldly thing, going big or going home is not his motto. Just going home is his motto, and he needs some more convincing.

So he asks God for another sign.

Slide: _______________________) Judges 6:36 (NIV)

Gideon said to God, "If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised---

Stop there. Gideon had God’s promise, and that should have been enough. No “if.” But Gideon needs more proof to believe God, so he asks God for a sign. He puts out this wool fleece on the ground that night, and in the morning when the dew comes out, if the fleece is wet and all the ground is dry, then he’ll know. That happens, and then Gideon remembers what he slept through in science class, that this is what would happen anyway, the fleece would naturally soak up the dew. So, he asks God to reverse it, for the opposite to happen the next morning, and it happens. Now, Gideon, the so-called mighty warrior, is ready for battle—maybe.

On the other side of the valley, the eastern coalition has all come together with all their armies. Israel has 32,000 but we learn in chapter 8 that the other army was much bigger, 135,000. Those odds aren’t too great: 4:1. The other army not only has 4 times the soldiers, but these are much better equipped and trained soldiers. Gideon looks over at the army on the other side, and once again is feeling incredibly insecure. The numbers are not looking good.

So God talks to him in chapter 7, and says, “Gideon, we have a numbers problem here. 135,000 to 32,000.” And Gideon is thinking, “Whew, I’m glad you see what I see. You are right, we’ve got to fix this. Ok, so what are you going to do to improve the numbers?” But God’s number problem is very different, as we read in 7:2:

Slide: _______________________) Judges 7:2-3 (NIV)

The LORD said to Gideon, “You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands. In order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her, announce now to the people, ‘Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.’”

Now, that’s not what Gideon was thinking. He’s freaking out, but God has his reasons. Remember, this story is about learning what it means to depend on God and not on our own smarts and strength. So, we read:

Slide: _______________________) Judges 7:3 (NIV)

...So twenty-two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained.

Oops! Only 10,000 remained. All the rest went home. Now the odds are 14:1. Really not good! But once again, God speaks to Gideon, and says, “Yep, now we have a real numbers problem. Still too many men.” And Gideon has to be thinking, “Ok, you are just killing me here. You’re killing me.” God says there are still too many men, and he tells him to go down to this particular spring, away from the valley and the opposing troops, to sift out the forces a little. They go down to this spring, with a small river coming out of it.

Slide: _______________________) Judges 7:5-7 (NIV)

So Gideon took the men down to the water. There the LORD told him, “Separate those who lap the water with their tongues like a dog from those who kneel down to drink.” Three hundred men lapped with their hands to their mouths. All the rest got down on their knees to drink. The LORD said to Gideon, “With the three hundred men that lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands…

So, God tells him to keep the 300 dog lappers, and the 9700 are to stay back from the main battle. Why does God keep the dog lappers and send the ones who got down on their knees out of the battle? We don’t really know, though it is entertaining to me to read some commentaries who give their theories. They say these are the elite troops, the best of the 10,000, because they keep their heads up as they drink so they can stay aware and keep their eyes on the enemy. Two big problems with that. First, the enemy is 5-6 miles away, way out of sight, so if they are trying to keep their eyes on the enemy, these guys aren’t elite soldiers, they are just stupid people. Second, dogs are never good in the Bible. Sorry to all pet lovers out there, but dogs are just never associated with greatness. I’m still pretty sure the Bible thinks they are better than cats, but still it is no complement to be compared to a dog in the Bible. These were not the Navy Seals or Army Green Berets. It was just a way for God to get the numbers down some more, because again—this is a story about dependence on God and his strength, not our own.

So, now the odds are ridiculous. 300 against 135,000. That’s now 450:1. Gideon is really freaking out now, and God knows that. So, before the battle he tells Gideon, “Look, if you need one more miracle from me to help you out, I’ll do it for you.” And Gideon takes him up on it. God tells him to go eavesdrop, under the cover of darkness, near the enemy camp at night. When he does, he hears these enemy soldiers talk about a dream they had about this gigantic loaf of barley that rolls right into their camp, and mows them all over. The guys say, “That’s the army of Gideon, and they are going to win!” Now, this is an interesting detail, because a loaf of barley is not that scary. The dream wasn’t about a bolt of lightning, or a forest fire, or a huge soldier, but a barley loaf. In that day, only animals and the poorest of the poor ate barley. This was the humblest of food, a barley loaf. But again, this is a story about dependence on God, and God can use anything or anyone to do his work. It’s just not about us. Gideon hears their fear, and that bolsters his courage. Now, he’s ready for the battle.

God gives the battle plan, and tells Gideon that they are going to do a surprise attack in the middle of the night against the enemy camp. He has him divide the 300 into three groups of 100, and gives them each 4 weapons: A trumpet, a clay pitcher, a torch, and their own voice. That’s it. Not swords and spears, but trumpets and clay pitchers. But Gideon does so, and then God tells him the plan. That at Gideon’s signal, after the 300 have snuck up on the enemy camp, every soldier is to light the torches, smash the pitchers, and blow the trumpets all at once.

They do so, and the sleepy enemy is totally confused. They know they are being attacked, and the noise is so great and so many signal trumpets are blowing, they assume the whole big Israelite army has come into the camp. They wake up, still confused, and they start swinging swords in the darkness. Remember, these are a coalition of forces, so they speak different languages, have different types of armor, and verse 22 lets us know that God makes them even more confused. They start fighting each other. The 300 are still around the camp, not even in the fight. But the enemy army assumes every one moving is an Israelite soldier, and they start killing each other. So many men fall that the rest get scared and run home. Gideon then sends the 9700 in reserve to mop up enemy troops that are left, and they score this huge victory. God delivers the nation from the tyranny of the enemy, and once again God saves the day.

An incredible story of how God can use anybody to do his greatest works. In fact, God loves to use nobodies to do his greatest work. He’s consistent throughout the Bible with that. One of my favorite quotes comes from Lily Tomlin, who said, “I’ve always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific.” Can you relate to that? Do you feel like a relative nobody? If you feel that way, like you have so little to offer, and you have all these disqualifications in your head for God to use you in a big way, realize this: your so-called disqualifications are your greatest qualifications in God’s eyes. You may feel relatively ungifted. Great! That’s not really true. God has gifted you, but if you feel untalented in comparison with others, well, you are perfect for God to use in a big way. You may feel like you have failed God in big ways, but God loves to redeem failure and sin to do his greatest work. He gets a kick out of doing that. If you feel weak, God loves to use the weak. If you feel foolish, God loves to use the foolish. If you feel like a failure, God loves to turn our biggest failures into our biggest ministry contributions. So, you are perfect for him. And God is so patient with Gideon. He just meets Gideon where he is, and keeps doing these little signs and miracles to help him. God is gracious, and he understands our feelings of weakness. He just wants us to understand that our weaknesses don’t matter, because the story is one about dependence on God, not ourselves.

But this isn’t the end of the Gideon story. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end well for Gideon. In the first part of the story, he struggles with insecurity, but at the end of his life, he struggles with the opposite problem. He becomes arrogant and independent from God.

They gain this huge victory, done in a way that makes it obvious that this was all about God and not about them. But they still find a way, like we all do, to make it all about them, and about their fearless leader, Gideon. After the victory, the nation gives credit to Gideon, and he gladly takes the credit. They want to make him not just a judge, but their King. But Gideon says, “No, God is our King. I’m not worthy of that honor.” That sounds very pious and humble, but it was false humility. Because then he lets them know what he does want, and basically he sets himself up to be King. He asks for each of them to give him gold and wealth, he amasses for himself a harem of women as the other area kings had, and has 70 sons through them to build a dynasty, and his next son he names “Abimelech,” which literally means, “My father is the King.” That’s not subtle. But worse than all of this, he builds an ephod, a symbol of connection to God, but he sets it up as an idol to be worshipped as they come to Gideon’s compound, to fall down and worship this ephod as an idol rather than God. 8:27 says:

Slide: _______________________) Judges 8:27 (NIV)

… All Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his family.

That’s quite an amazing shift…from insecurity to arrogance. He has a big success, and the once insecure self-proclaimed loser is now an arrogant winner. And I am very convinced that success is a much bigger challenge to following God than insecurity and failure are. God wants us to live our lives dependent on him, but it seems like we vacillate between the two other options (use flannel board), self-doubt or self-dependence. We’ve talked a little about self-doubt, or insecurity, that can make us fearful to step out and serve God, but let’s talk about self-dependence for a few minutes.

I believe this is a far bigger problem for us in American culture than the other, because we live in a culture that has relatively few needs. We are so well supplied, we have so much, that we can easily live independent lives from God. God becomes relevant occasionally when we get into some rare trouble with our health or with our finances or with a relationship—but by and large, most of the time, we can comfortably live life without God. Our wealth has given us that option, which is why Jesus told his disciples it is so rare for a wealthy person to live a God-dependent, God-focused life.

When we travel to spend time with our church partners overseas, such as in Ethiopia, Cuba, Haiti, or Guatemala, we find the opposite. These people depend on God for their existence every day. They know that; they feel that. As a result, they are people of big faith and big dependence on God, because they need God in an everyday way that we can fool ourselves into thinking we don’t.

A couple of years ago at the Leadership Summit we host every year in August, I was really convicted by this when I heard a fellow American speak. His name is Gary Haugen, and he is the director of the International Justice Mission, a global organization that serves as an advocate to the poorest of the poor around the world who are routinely denied justice. They have employed highly educated lawyers and other staffers who are very sharp, dedicated people. What convicted me was when he said, “As a staff, we start every day with prayer, sometimes 30 minutes, sometimes an hour, because we know that we have to. What we are involved in is so over our heads, we know how much we need God to show up.”

That really convicted me personally, because I can go through many days with only token prayers for myself. I may pray for others, but I don’t often pray for my own day with the same intensity. After that talk, Jack Warren, our Executive Pastor, who directs our staff, talked to me, convicted as well, and said, “Man, we’ve got to pray together more as a staff than we do right now.” And we do. Each week, we begin on our knees and pray throughout the week, because we realize how much we need God to show up in all the needs and challenges and opportunities God has put in front of our church. As elders, half the time we meet, we spend in the Word and prayer, because we need God to work if this community and world are going to be transformed.

Along these same lines, a few weeks ago I visited Christ Church, a really great church here in Plano, to hear a guest speaker, pastor and author Tim Keller, speak. As it turned out, he was talking about times of revival, which he defined as an intensification of the ordinary work of the Spirit (God, the Holy Spirit) in a church or a region or nation in a way that spills over into the community. He described it as a time where sleepy Christians wake up, nominal Christians are converted, and secular people are attracted to Christ. Legalism and self-righteousness disappear, as the gospel of grace takes over in a highly transformational way. Such times are beyond normal, and happen only occasionally. As I heard him speak, I was praying, talking with God in my own heart and mind, and said, “God, this is what you’ve been doing around Chase Oaks these last few years, and I’m taking that for granted. What’s been happening in people’s lives, as hundreds of people come to know Christ, as many sleepy Christians are now living the mission, and our community is being transformed in various pockets, this is not normal—and I’ve been acting like it is. I’ve just taken it for granted that you are always going to work this way, that you are going to blow the wind of your spirit continually in the life of our church forever, and I am so sorry to take it for granted.”

From some significant study, Tim looked at times of revival throughout history to find what they all have in common, and he could only find one element in common. Each historical time of revival was so unique, but they all share this one element. And that one element? Extraordinary prayer. God responds to the prayers of his people with intensification of his work in and through the church in an extraordinary way.

I don’t want to take God’s work for granted, and know that we need a dose of extraordinary prayer. So, here’s what I’m going to ask of each Chase Oaker. I’m going to ask all of us to enter into a season of extraordinary prayer, asking God to intensify his work in and through our church. One way I’d like us to do that is this: The week leading up to Easter, I’m calling us to a time of prayer.

Give details.

We need God to show up in our own lives and in the life of our church, am I right about that? The posture of a God-dependent person is a posture of prayer. We want increasingly to be a church of prayer, and let’s enter into a season of extraordinary prayer.

We need to do so not only because the mission demands it, but also because God has put some significant challenges and opportunities in front of us. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I needed you to pray for wisdom as we were making decisions about how to move forward with Go Boldly. Go Boldly is this season that we are in, where many of us at Chase Oaks are giving above and beyond our regular giving to the church to be able to add a campus at Fairview and to expand this Legacy campus to continue to reach our community. God has placed us here, surrounded by 720,000 people, most of whom do not yet know Christ, and we’ve got a long way to go to reach them. With that mission, in Go Boldly, Chase Oakers committed 12 million dollars over the next three years above and beyond our regular giving to the church to expand in these ways.

If you remember, though, our goal was 16 million, which we knew was a very high goal. When the commitment number was 12 million, last time I shared about Go Boldly, I mentioned that the 12 million is a very interesting number, for a number of reasons. But the 12 million was our go or no go line number. To move forward with the project, the 12 million was that number that we had to have to move forward. I also mentioned how moving forward was going to take a lot of wisdom, and how it means that this journey over these next few years is going to be a faith journey, and will get interesting. In that way, it really is better than the 16, because that wouldn’t have been a faith journey, but a slam dunk. With the 12, we are completely dependent on God for each step and each decision. The other reality with the 12 million dollar number is that every single dollars counts.

To move forward with the core of the project, when I say every dollar of the 12 million counts, as I said a few months ago, I really mean every single dollar. So, in light of that, as we’ve prayed and gotten wisdom from various people, here’s how we believe God wants us to move forward. Typically, what you expect to get from a commitment process like go boldly is about 85% to actually come in. In this case, that’s not good enough. Again, every dollar counts. So, what we need and what we are praying for is 100% of that to come in. We can’t do the entire core of the project, which is expanding this worship space, parking, and Kidzone building expansion without every dollar. We could go and get more significant debt, but as we’ve prayed about that, we just don’t feel that’s the way to go for a number of reasons. So, we are going to build according to what comes in.

What this means is that we will phase the project in two phases. The first phase we will add the Fairview campus, which we’ve already done. And at Legacy we will expand the worship center, add some of the projected parking, and put off the full Kidzone building expansion until we know we’ve raised the full 12 million. In that interim we will repurpose parts of our current building for KidZone use, because we remain highly committed to keeping KidZone programming excellent. That will buy us some time until phase two, when we will finish out the KidZone building.

How will we raise the full 12 million or more? As we did with Imagine, we will keep the Commitment process open. Some of you may find that God will bless you more financially in these years than you expected when you made your commitment last November, and you will be able to expand your pledge. A number of people in our Imagine campaign did just that, which is important, because some number of others may find surprises to the negative, that make it difficult or impossible to fulfill the full commitment. Also, as God leads new people into the life of our church, they too have the opportunity to participate. In Imagine, we had a good number of people do just that, wanting to not miss out on what God is doing and on the blessing of participating financially. With that in mind, we believe it is very realistic to get to the 100%, though it will certainly be a faith journey, a God-dependent one. When we get to the 100%, we’ll begin phase two. Make sense?

So, as we are entering into a period of extraordinary prayer, let’s include in that this whole Go Boldly process. We will likely begin actual construction of phase one at the end of this year. You’ve also seen the offices going up, and that whole story is a great story to encourage us that God is a God who can provide. From a purely human perspective, we should not be able to be building those offices, but God provided in such a God-could-only-have-done-this kind of way, that it’s a huge encouragement as we continue to move forward with Go Boldly.

So, we’ve talked a while about where we are as a church, and how dependent on God we are, and I do hope you’ll jump in. But where does this leave us as individuals? As we close in prayer, I want you to look at the flannel board again. On this whole dependence on God theme, which of the two alternatives might best describe you right now? Self-doubt and insecurity or self-reliance?

On the one side, self-doubt, that can easily keep you from taking big steps that you know God is wanting you to take. As we spend time with God, ask him to help you trust him for courage, and to help you understand that he loves to use the weak to do his greatest work. Those of you who feel least qualified are actually the most qualified. Like with Gideon and Mitzi the Wonder Dog, he loves to choose unlikely heroes to do his most heroic work.

On the other side is self-reliance, and be honest if that’s where you are at. A major symptom of self-reliance is prayerlessness. Parents, how much are you praying for your kids, or are you just plugging away on your own? In your job, how much are you praying for God’s wisdom and energy to do your work well to the glory of God, to be a powerful witness to others of God’s love for them? However you may be involved in ministry within the church or outside the church, how prayerful or prayerless are you at this point? How much do you really sense a need for God?

Either way, let’s go to God now, and ask him to guide us toward more God dependent lives.

Prayer.

Gideon doubted God's charge to deliver Israel, but we learn how God made him into a judge, a warrior, and a man of faith.

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Preached at Chase Oak Church. Plano, Texas