Runt or Mighty Warrior?
I’ve been giving a lot of attention to our UMC mission statement: making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, because it is important. It is important to remember that transformation is what God’s all about.
I want you to think about yourself for a moment. Could God use you for transformation? If you’re like me, you can probably find lots of excuses as to why God wouldn’t or couldn’t use you for radical transformation.
This morning, we’re going to look at a nobody. But first, some background. It was the days of the judges who led Israel. But Israel had stopped obeying God, and the Midianites had overrun Israel, so badly that the Israelites were hiding in caves in the mountains. Whenever they planted crops, the Midianites would invade, ruining the crops and fields. Finally Israel cried out to the Lord for help.
Judges 6:11 The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites.
This underscores how bad off Israel was. Normally they would thresh wheat in a large area so the chaff would blow away. But because of the Midianite oppression, they even had to hide to thresh their wheat, lest the Midianites find them. That’s where we find Gideon.
Judges 6:12 When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, "The Lord is with you, mighty warrior."
Now, threshing wheat in a winepress is an interesting place to find a mighty warrior.
Judges 6:13 "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 out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian."
This is a typical response: not accepting any national responsibility for the calamity, which scripture attributes to the Israelites doing evil in the eyes of the Lord. Instead of accepting any responsibility, Gideon bemoans his perception that God has abandoned them.
I want to take a moment to discuss why bad things happen to good people. First of all, we have to understand that there are two distinct kind of bad things: natural evil and moral evil.
Natural evil is suffering that comes from natural causes, like diseases, tsunamis, floods, earthquakes and so forth. Especially when we are dealing with natural evil, we have to remember that sometimes life just happens. Not everything happens for a reason. Some bad things just happen. Remember that at the fall, not only did things go wrong for Adam and Eve, but for the whole world. We are now in the grip of the law of entropy: things fall apart as they get old. In Romans 8, Paul writes about his hope that the creation itself will be liberated to its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time (Romans 8:21-22).
We are fallen creatures prone to self-sufficiency, and our deepest need is to recognize our need for God’s grace. Given this need, perhaps the existence of bad things can be helpful; we thus see that we can’t rely upon ourselves. This is not to insinuate that God causes evil just so we know we need him. But when evil happens, it points us toward a God who is intimately involved and cares deeply about our suffering. Proof of God’s love for us is that He bore our sorrows – He became human in the person of Jesus Christ, and His death on the cross provides encouragement for us in times of suffering.
Moral evil is evil caused by some moral agent (i.e., human cruelty, injustice, or oppression).
There are two types of moral evil: active, which is sinful behaviors, and passive, which is suffering resulting from active moral evil. Moral evil says that Sometimes things happen as direct consequences of our actions. We have the freedom to make our own choices, and sometimes we make bad choices. And those bad choices have consequences not only for us, but for our children and our grandchildren. I’ll be getting to that more in our next series when we being working to put the pieces of the puzzle together and become a more emotionally healthy church.
The freedom we have to make bad choices is absolutely necessary for us to be able to freely make good choices. For to love God is to choose to love God; we cannot truly love Him if we cannot choose not to love Him.
The Israelites were reaping the consequences for their bad choices, but they were also reaping the consequences of previous generations’ choices; it went all the way back to Abraham, as his attempt to make his own progeny backfired not only on him, but also on his descendants. The Israelites descended from Abraham and Sarah’s son, Isaac, while the Midianites descended from Abraham and his second wife, Keturah, and their son Midian.
Now, back to Gideon. Before I bash him, I don’t blame anyone for asking the "why do bad things happen" question. It is a fundamental question that needs to be solved for Christian belief to make sense.
Instead of answering Gideon’s question, the Lord gives him an instruction:
Judges 6:14: 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?"
This is hugely significant. Instead of answering Gideon’s objection regarding the problem of evil, God tells him, "You are part of the solution to the problem of evil." I believe that God is saying the same thing to each one of us right now and to all of us as His Church. Do you see something that isn’t right? Do you see suffering, oppression, and injustice? If so, God is calling you to do something about it.
Judges 6:15"But Lord," Gideon asked, "How can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manassah, and I am the least in my family."
Gideon says, I’m the runt of my family, which is the weakest clan in the smallest tribe of Israel. I can’t save Israel! I can barely tie my own shoes! We use this kind of excuse a lot. I could never do ____ because ____. All you’re doing when you do that is saying, I doubt that God is really powerful. Do you remember learning the song "Jesus Loves Me" as a child? We sing that "Little ones to Him belong/They are weak, but He is strong." It may be a simple song, but it’s true. Reminding God of our limitations implies that God doesn’t know all about us or that he has made a mistake in evaluating us.
Judges 6:16 The Lord answered, "I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together."
Here is a word from God that we can hold on to, no matter how tough things seem. God told Gideon, "I’m calling you, I’m commissioning you, I’m sending you, and I’ll be with you." It reminds me of a couple of other scriptures: When Moses was leading the Israelites out of Egypt, there was a huge crisis involving a golden calf and a plague. Moses went to the tent of meeting and begged God. Exodus 33:12:"You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me,’
If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people." The Lord replied, "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." Exodus 33:13-14
God promised that he would go with them. Much later, God came to earth in human form, in the Person of Jesus Christ. What were his last words to his disciples, as recorded by Matthew? "Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Matthew 28:20b)
This is the promise that God makes to each of us. It’s a promise that He will never leave us or forsake us. But God has a sense of humor in all of it as well. Remember how I said that God sometimes uses natural evils to remind us of how much we need him? Well, He also uses miracles for the same purpose. After he told Gideon that he would go with him and complete his purpose, Gideon got the fighting men together. And here is God’s response:
Judges 7:2 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.’"
He ends up winnowing the number of fighting men down to 300, and utterly routes the Midianites.
This is the way God works if we let him. He comes to us, even in the midst of all of our troubles and difficulties. He announces a new identity for us, an identity that is rooted in Him, an identity that (Philippians 4:13) can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me. Then He goes with us and never leaves us.
I want you to think about yourself for a moment. Could God use you for transformation? If you’re like me, you can probably find lots of excuses as to why God wouldn’t or couldn’t use you for radical transformation.
This morning, we’re going to look at a nobody. But first, some background. It was the days of the judges who led Israel. But Israel had stopped obeying God, and the Midianites had overrun Israel, so badly that the Israelites were hiding in caves in the mountains. Whenever they planted crops, the Midianites would invade, ruining the crops and fields. Finally Israel cried out to the Lord for help.
Judges 6:11 The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites.
This underscores how bad off Israel was. Normally they would thresh wheat in a large area so the chaff would blow away. But because of the Midianite oppression, they even had to hide to thresh their wheat, lest the Midianites find them. That’s where we find Gideon.
Judges 6:12 When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, "The Lord is with you, mighty warrior."
Now, threshing wheat in a winepress is an interesting place to find a mighty warrior.
Judges 6:13 "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 out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian."
This is a typical response: not accepting any national responsibility for the calamity, which scripture attributes to the Israelites doing evil in the eyes of the Lord. Instead of accepting any responsibility, Gideon bemoans his perception that God has abandoned them.
I want to take a moment to discuss why bad things happen to good people. First of all, we have to understand that there are two distinct kind of bad things: natural evil and moral evil.
Natural evil is suffering that comes from natural causes, like diseases, tsunamis, floods, earthquakes and so forth. Especially when we are dealing with natural evil, we have to remember that sometimes life just happens. Not everything happens for a reason. Some bad things just happen. Remember that at the fall, not only did things go wrong for Adam and Eve, but for the whole world. We are now in the grip of the law of entropy: things fall apart as they get old. In Romans 8, Paul writes about his hope that the creation itself will be liberated to its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time (Romans 8:21-22).
We are fallen creatures prone to self-sufficiency, and our deepest need is to recognize our need for God’s grace. Given this need, perhaps the existence of bad things can be helpful; we thus see that we can’t rely upon ourselves. This is not to insinuate that God causes evil just so we know we need him. But when evil happens, it points us toward a God who is intimately involved and cares deeply about our suffering. Proof of God’s love for us is that He bore our sorrows – He became human in the person of Jesus Christ, and His death on the cross provides encouragement for us in times of suffering.
Moral evil is evil caused by some moral agent (i.e., human cruelty, injustice, or oppression).
There are two types of moral evil: active, which is sinful behaviors, and passive, which is suffering resulting from active moral evil. Moral evil says that Sometimes things happen as direct consequences of our actions. We have the freedom to make our own choices, and sometimes we make bad choices. And those bad choices have consequences not only for us, but for our children and our grandchildren. I’ll be getting to that more in our next series when we being working to put the pieces of the puzzle together and become a more emotionally healthy church.
The freedom we have to make bad choices is absolutely necessary for us to be able to freely make good choices. For to love God is to choose to love God; we cannot truly love Him if we cannot choose not to love Him.
The Israelites were reaping the consequences for their bad choices, but they were also reaping the consequences of previous generations’ choices; it went all the way back to Abraham, as his attempt to make his own progeny backfired not only on him, but also on his descendants. The Israelites descended from Abraham and Sarah’s son, Isaac, while the Midianites descended from Abraham and his second wife, Keturah, and their son Midian.
Now, back to Gideon. Before I bash him, I don’t blame anyone for asking the "why do bad things happen" question. It is a fundamental question that needs to be solved for Christian belief to make sense.
Instead of answering Gideon’s question, the Lord gives him an instruction:
Judges 6:14: 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?"
This is hugely significant. Instead of answering Gideon’s objection regarding the problem of evil, God tells him, "You are part of the solution to the problem of evil." I believe that God is saying the same thing to each one of us right now and to all of us as His Church. Do you see something that isn’t right? Do you see suffering, oppression, and injustice? If so, God is calling you to do something about it.
Judges 6:15"But Lord," Gideon asked, "How can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manassah, and I am the least in my family."
Gideon says, I’m the runt of my family, which is the weakest clan in the smallest tribe of Israel. I can’t save Israel! I can barely tie my own shoes! We use this kind of excuse a lot. I could never do ____ because ____. All you’re doing when you do that is saying, I doubt that God is really powerful. Do you remember learning the song "Jesus Loves Me" as a child? We sing that "Little ones to Him belong/They are weak, but He is strong." It may be a simple song, but it’s true. Reminding God of our limitations implies that God doesn’t know all about us or that he has made a mistake in evaluating us.
Judges 6:16 The Lord answered, "I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together."
Here is a word from God that we can hold on to, no matter how tough things seem. God told Gideon, "I’m calling you, I’m commissioning you, I’m sending you, and I’ll be with you." It reminds me of a couple of other scriptures: When Moses was leading the Israelites out of Egypt, there was a huge crisis involving a golden calf and a plague. Moses went to the tent of meeting and begged God. Exodus 33:12:"You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me,’
If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people." The Lord replied, "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." Exodus 33:13-14
God promised that he would go with them. Much later, God came to earth in human form, in the Person of Jesus Christ. What were his last words to his disciples, as recorded by Matthew? "Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Matthew 28:20b)
This is the promise that God makes to each of us. It’s a promise that He will never leave us or forsake us. But God has a sense of humor in all of it as well. Remember how I said that God sometimes uses natural evils to remind us of how much we need him? Well, He also uses miracles for the same purpose. After he told Gideon that he would go with him and complete his purpose, Gideon got the fighting men together. And here is God’s response:
Judges 7:2 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.’"
He ends up winnowing the number of fighting men down to 300, and utterly routes the Midianites.
This is the way God works if we let him. He comes to us, even in the midst of all of our troubles and difficulties. He announces a new identity for us, an identity that is rooted in Him, an identity that (Philippians 4:13) can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me. Then He goes with us and never leaves us.
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