Gideon's Remarkable Transformation

Hello Dear One! Today’s Text: Judges 6:11-15 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.” 13 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is 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.” 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?” 15 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” Song: Such a great song of gratitude. Lyrics can be found here. Here is a possible benediction song with the lyrics on the screen. Question for Discussion: Allow people in your group to freely respond to the message. And if you’d like a question to engage the group in conversation, here’s one from the “Table Conversations” deck from John Mark Comer and Practicing the Way: “If your future self could give you advice for this season, what do you think they would say?” In your group: I would suggest offering each person an agreed upon amount of time to answer this question, with someone working as a timekeeper. It is important that this time of conversation reflects the entire gathered community - even those who don’t usually share very often. And as you close your time together: I leave you with this blessing: I release you in the power of the Holy Spirit into the world God so loves, to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with the God, who sees the goodness and grace in you and walks proudly with you. Many blessings, Carmen Riverside Anabaptist Collective is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts in your inbox and support this work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This post is offered for individual worship, and for sharing with your small group and member congregations. It is offered free of charge at this time - you do not need to be a paid subscriber to access this content. Please do share it with others who may appreciate the blessing in this message. Notes: Meet Gideon We meet Gideon in Judges 6, he's having a bad day. The last 7 years have been really hard because Gideon has the worst neighbors ever! Judges 6 2-6 MSG Midian overpowered Israel. Because of Midian, the People of Israel made for themselves hideouts in the mountains—caves and forts. When Israel planted its crops, Midian and Amalek, the easterners, would invade them, camp in their fields, and destroy their crops all the way down to Gaza. They left nothing for them to live on, neither sheep nor ox nor donkey. Bringing their cattle and tents, they came in and took over, like an invasion of locusts. And their camels—past counting! They marched in and devastated the country. The People of Israel, reduced to grinding poverty by Midian, cried out to God for help. This was more than having a bad day, Gideon was hungry. He was hiding. He was afraid. He was sick of trying and failing again against an enemy who was relentless. Gideon wondered what had become of God. Judges 6:11-12 One day the angel of God came and sat down under the oak in Ofrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, whose son Gideon was threshing wheat in the winepress, out of sight of the Midianites. The angel of God appeared to him and said, “God is with you, O mighty warrior!” 13 Gideon replied, “With me, my master? If God is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all the miracle-wonders our parents and grandparents told us about, telling us, ‘Didn’t God deliver us from Egypt?’ The fact is, God has nothing to do with us—he has turned us over to Midian.” 14 But God faced him directly: “Go in this strength that is yours. Save Israel from Midian. Haven’t I just sent you?” 15 Gideon said to him, “Me, my master? How and with what could I ever save Israel? Look at me. My clan’s the weakest in Manasseh and I’m the runt of the litter.” Gideon was so ground down by all that he had seen over the last 7 years. He was hungry. He was afraid. He was cynical. He was tired of trying and failing. He was threshing wheat in the winepress, not because he didn't know he was in the wrong place, but because he was desperate to be able to feed himself and his family. Gideon was hungry. Gideon’s predicament Do you see yourself in Gideon? I sure do. I've been afraid. I've been super cynical. Gideon was tired of trying and failing, and I identify with him a lot. There are lots of things I've tried and worked super hard at that didn't work out like I hoped. It's super easy to wonder where God has gone off to, especially when it's been a long time since we've seen a miracle or felt those everlasting arms wrapping us up in a warm embrace. We can give it our all, but sometimes it hasn't gone like we wanted it to. We're worn out. And I'm not Moses, or King David, or even Jacob, or even the woman at the well whose name we are not told. I'm me. Little ol me. 6:12 The angel of God appeared to him and said, “God is with you, O mighty warrior!” Gideon didn't soak it in, he just reacted. 13 Gideon replied, “With me, my master? This was no Silent Night, Holy Night background music kind of moment. The hero of the story isn't playing the role of a saint here, he's just so DONE. Gideon is hungry and pragmatic. He's proven that he can barely feed his family and his enemies are massive! And we hear his heart's cry: 13 “If God is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all the miracle-wonders our parents and grandparents told us about, telling us, ‘Didn’t God deliver us from Egypt?’ Gideon has come to the conclusion that God is absent. Gideon is saying this to the messenger from God. God is absent! He's left us. Gideon is saying this to the messenger sent from that same absent God. Gideon was honest about his pain and fear, not necessarily polite – look how God responds. Notice how in verse 12 it's “The angel of God appeared to him” And notice the difference in verse 14. “But God faced him directly” …at the moment when Gideon is pouring out his pain and fear, God turns toward him. 6:14 God faced him directly: “Go in this strength that is yours. Save Israel from Midian. Haven’t I just sent you?” Out of Gideon's own empty well and hunger he responds: 15 How and with what could I ever save Israel? Look at me. (MSG) My clan’s the weakest in Manasseh and I’m the runt of the litter.” There's an underlying fundamental unbelief that God would choose to partner with me to do something beautiful in this scary ol world – do you know what that feels like? Maybe we're waiting for a new Moses to show up, maybe we're waiting for an old man with a long beard and a staff in their hand – someone who looks super serious and a little fierce like Charlton Heston. Maybe we're looking for someone with the halo glow around their head and shoulders never realizing that maybe you're the one. Maybe I'm the one. Maybe we are the ones. Maybe the person speaking to you in the grocery store is a messenger of the very God who feels absent, but is right in front of you. Patience We see God's patience in the text. * He's not put off by Gideon's honesty, in fact he turns toward him. * The angel receives his offering and gives him peace. * Gideon went on to tear down the altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole and build an altar and sacrifice the second bull from his father's herd. * The Holy Spirit came upon him and he blew a shofar summoning his community to follow him into battle. * Then he laid out a fleece. * Then he laid out another fleece, but God had patience with him. Spying on the Enemy Judges 7:9-12 That night, God told Gideon: “Get up and go down to the camp. I’ve given it to you. If you have any doubts about going, go with Purah your armor bearer; when you hear what they’re saying, you’ll be bold and confident.” So God says “If you have any doubts...” Did Gideon have doubts? Yes! Totally! V 11: “He and his armor bearer Purah went near the place where sentries were posted. Midian and Amalek, all the easterners, were spread out on the plain like a swarm of locusts. And their camels! Past counting, like grains of sand on the seashore! 13 Gideon arrived just in time to hear a man tell his friend a dream. He said, “I had this dream: A loaf of barley bread tumbled into the Midianite camp. It came to the tent and hit it so hard it collapsed. The tent fell!” 14 His friend said, “This has to be the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite! God has turned Midian—the whole camp!—over to him.” 15 When Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he dropped to his knees before God in prayer. Then he went back to the Israelite camp and said, “Get up and get going! God has just given us the Midianite army!” There's a God-thing happening here. There's a transformation happening here. Gideon is going from “Me, my Master?!” to “God has just given us the Midianite army.” It's a change. Where did his cynicism go? What happened to his hopelessness? Where did his “I'm the runt of the litter” thinking go? What happened to his belief that God was on vacation? What happened to his belief that nothing ever worked out right for him? Did Gideon hear the word of the Lord in the enemy's camp? A Strange Attack Judges 7:19-22 “They blew the shofar, at the same time smashing the jars they carried. All three companies blew the shofars and broke the jars. They held the torches in their left hands and the shofars in their right hands, ready to blow, and shouted, “A sword for God and for Gideon!” They were stationed all around the camp, each man at his post. The whole Midianite camp jumped to its feet. They yelled and fled. When the three hundred blew the shofars, God aimed each Midianite’s sword against his companion, all over the camp. They ran for their lives” Gideon and his 300 hungry men chased down that army. Two Kings of Midian Move your finger down the page a little bit to a few verses in Judges 8 where they’re talking about how the battle played out. Judges 8:10 Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor with an army of about fifteen companies, all that was left of the fighting force of the easterners—they had lost 120 companies of soldiers. 11-12 Gideon went up the caravan trail east of Nobah and Jogbehah, found and attacked the undefended camp. Zebah and Zalmunna fled, but he chased and captured the two kings of Midian. The whole camp had panicked. Judges 8:18 (NIV) Then Gideon asked Zebah and Zalmunna, “What kind of men did you kill at Tabor?” “Men like you,” they answered, “each one with the bearing of a prince.” Posture How do you go from considering yourself the runt of the litter, to walking around with the posture of a prince? How did that happen? Gideon was a hungry, hopeless, cynical man. He faced the messenger of God saying God was absent, and God turned toward him. Gideon asked for reassurance again, and again, and again. God walked with him, even to overhearing the words of his enemies. Gideon's enemy knew his identity better than he did. Who changed Gideon's posture? Who took Gideon from nobody to somebody? Giving it some thought How's your posture, friend? Has God sent you messengers? Has God been convincing you that He's there? How has God been encouraging you to take steps of faith, even when scared? What does God call you when you're alone with God? “Mighty Warrior” or __________ Who are you really? Not who do you believe yourself to be – but who are you really? Are you the runt of the litter or is there something about you that is so much more? Now, Gideon is an old testament character and I think there is a New Testament addendum or supplementary material to add here. See, it's really easy to get a sin-focused approach to faith, and spend our time and energy trying to strive our way into holiness. We try to correct our sins, dealing with guilt, condemnation and self-loathing. We keep trying, and we keep up the slog of fighting our enemy – as if we are fighting the epic battle of good vs evil all on our own. And that's when it gets easy to pull out something like the rhetorical question asked by Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Little verses taken out of context can do damage. And we can sing our songs about being wretched, or being a worm... there are some of those. Or we can catch David in his angst after he heard Nathan's confrontation Psalm 51:5 “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” We can get a very internal sin-focused kind of self-loathing, and we can live there, and we can be miserable wretches. And we can grow comfortable in our “runt of the litter” thinking. And as long as we're striving with an inward focus trying to work out the nuts and bolts of our salvation, that pretty much guarantees we will be useless for the Kindgom. Because the generosity of the Kingdom is centered in the gift of Jesus. The grace of God, and the pervasive presence of the Holy Spirit. Kingdom life is centered in the Three, and sin does not exist in their presence. The Community of The Three is a beautiful and generous place of grace. I would suggest a more New Testament approach which is very consistent with the way God interacts with Gideon in this old testament story. One of my favorite transformative scriptures is 2 Corinthians 5:17-19 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, that person is a new creation. The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. My mentor reminds me not to have a sin-focused life, that old Carmen is dead, why are you trying to mess with that dead thing?! If we live from our old creation self, we'll always be trying and failing to measure up. If we live from our new creation self, everything is a gift from God. The robe of righteousness that covers all of our sins? That comes from Jesus. The empowering presence of the Holy Spirit? Yep, from God. This makes it possible to live from our place as a new creation instead of trying to give our old creation self a makeover to become more pleasing. We all have places where we have some “runt of the litter” thinking. But even when we are unsure, and scared, and all the other things that Gideon was... God saw him as a warrior. And when Gideon showed up with that declaration: “God has given us the Midianite army.” Gideon realized before the battle was even fought, before the first shofar sounded, before the first torch was lit – that battle was done. That victory was his. And friends, that transformation is ours also. When we realize that we live FROM salvation, and not toward it... our posture changes. When we live FROM peace, and not toward it... When we live FROM forgiveness, and not toward it... When we live FROM grace, and not toward it... Because God already fought that battle. We may be standing here with our weapons, but God already fought that battle and won it. You are not sinful, guilty, wretched, desperately wicked, or any of those horrible self-loathing messages. You are... Your new creation self is characterized by love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. My takeaways from this text? * Be radically honest with God. You never know when you're saying “God is absent” right in God's face... and God can handle that kind of radical honesty. Because God always sees the truth, but sometimes we're afraid to admit the truth. So my first take away is to be very real with God, even when you're devastated by the sense of God's absence. You never know when your exhaled breath is going right into the face of God. It’s ok to say to God “I just don’t sense you right now.” God can handle that. * God is in the transformation business. God can take the runt of the litter guy and turn him into a warrior. We all have an old creation guy that was washed away in baptism. Don't go looking for that old corpse. There's nothing there but empty religion, and striving, and trying to reach God through our own efforts – and failing. * Gideon became a mighty warrior not so much because of who he was, but because of who God is. And the good and perfect gifts God gives aren't so much about us as they are about the extravagant goodness and kindness of God who loves nothing more than to work the great exchange of all of our worst for all of God's best. * We don't work toward the gifts of God, we don't beg for what already belongs to us. We live from the gifts. The love, kindness, gentleness, the patience – all of that – it's ours already. It's a finished work that God did sending his son Jesus because God's love for us was so overwhelming and God just couldn't stand to see one more dear one struggling to earn something God freely gave. Friend, it's not so much who we are – I'm sure we could each talk about our own sets of hangups, heartbreaks, and hunger. What matters is who God is. And God is in the transformation business in the old testament and in the new. I love the transformation of Gideon, taking him from “the runt of the litter” to “a man with the bearing of a prince”. Those are two very different postures. Gideon had to participate with God to develop a new mindset about who he was in light not of his past failures, but in light of his very present God. Who are you my friend? Are you hungry like Gideon? Are you cynical like he was? Are you a mighty warrior like Gideon? Look at the patience of God in this text, visiting Gideon when he was saying God was absent, but God turning toward him in his pain. Look at the kindness of God showing Gideon what the enemy was saying. Look at the power of God to win a phenomenal victory with only 300 warriors. Look at your own little self, while I'm over here looking at my own little self. And then together let's look up at our great big God. And so God told Gideon, “Go in this strength that is yours.” * Stand in this strength that belongs to you. * Fight the battles that God has already won for you. * Live from the Grace that is already yours. Living like that will change your posture. It'll change mine. We'll show up different when we know God’s remarkable generosity, grace, and kindness toward us. * Go in the strength God is giving you. * Go in the strength God is giving you. * Go in the strength God has given you. Amen. Riverside Anabaptist Collective is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts in your inbox and support this work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carmenshenk.substack.com/subscribe