With God It’s Possible
GNLCC 11/18/2001 Judges 6:1-10 Hebrews 10:19-31 Judges 6 & 7
Toby
When was the last time in your life in which you wanted to try something or accomplish something, but you were afraid that you might not succeed so you didn’t even try? When was the last time, in which you went out and did something that you did not think you could do, but you did it and are glad that you did. Each of those experiences leaves us with a certain feeling inside. The first memory has that gnawing feeling of regret, and the second immediately brings a “Yes” to our memory.
Rick
There are many experiences that we choose to try on our own, and they do not always lead to victory. I worked at a camp one summer on a lake. I desperately wanted to learn to water ski. I tried my hardest, but I simply could not get up on the top of the water when the boat took off. Now I had prayed for God’s help. For some reason or another, I had to accept, God had not called me to be a water skier, because if He had, I would have been on the water. When we say, with God, all things are possible, we must remember things become possible when God calls us to do them. There is a temptation to say, “I want to do this and I will do it because with God all things are possible.” The biblical truth is once God has told us to do something, with God it becomes possible to bring it to reality.”
Toby
Warren Weirsbe once said, “God’s commandments are God’s enablements.” Once God has called and commissioned us to do something, all we have to do is obey God by faith and God will do the rest. God cannot lie, and God never fails. Faith means obeying God in spite of what we see, how we feel, or what the consequences might be. No one does a work for the Lord without having to pay a price to overcome some kind of fear. We find that fear present in Moses, in Gideon, in Jeremiah, in Mary and even in Jesus there in the Garden of Gethsamenae. Today we are going to focus in on Gideon in Judges Chapter 6 & 7.
Rick
God’s people’s lives were miserable thanks to the Midianites. Now imagine being farmers. You go out and plant your seeds, waters the fields, pull the weeds, and doing all you can to make your food grow. Then just as you see the food is growing and about ready to be harvested, you see this cloud of smoke coming from the east. That cloud of smoke is due to the Midianites and the animals coming by the thousands to trample your garden and to have the animals eat all the food you have grown. They leave, but its too late to plant anything again, and now you’ve got to figure out, what am I going to eat for the coming year to get me through the winter.
Toby
Now meet Gideon. He’s just a farmer whose trying to get him some wheat for his next meal. Normally when a farmer was threshing wheat, he would be outside tossing the wheat into the air, so that the wind could blow away the chaff which was the bad part of the grain. But Gideon is doing this down in a hole in the ground in a winepress. He wants to make sure no Midianite sees him and possibly takes away his food. There he is trying to be as secret about the whole process as possible.
Rick
Why God makes the decision He makes is often beyond our understanding. He sends an angel out to Gideon. The first thing the angel says to Gideon, “The Lord is with you, oh mighty warrior.” Tell the person next to you, “The Lord is with you, oh mighty warrior.” Isn’t it amazing, that at one point the Scriputres remind us that we are but dust, our lives are like the morning cloud which passes away, and we have not served God as we should, and yet still God turns around and says great things about us. All the circumstances surrounding Gideon’s life said that he was the exact opposite. But how many of you know, when God says something about us, it does not matter what our circumstances say, because with God, its possible.
Toby
When God looks at us, He does not see us as simply a small church on East 105th street. He sees us a mighty warrior with a mission to make a difference in Glenville and the greater Cleveland area. God is ready to do something new in this area. Don’t you find it interesting that God has called Cleveland Church of Christ, Lee Memorial, Glenville Church Of God, and Glenville New Life all to build new buildings for ministry and outreach into the community. Yet none of us sat down together and said, what is your church planning.
Rick
When God calls us, one of the first things we want to do is to question whether or not God actually called us. Gideon immediately told the angel, “there must be some mistake. Don’t you know about all the problems in my life and in my community. Don’t you see how we’re fighting to survive. If God is with us, how in the world could we be experiencing all this.” We could say the same to God. God don’t you know about the drug problems. Don’t you know about the broken homes? Don’t you know about the number of young people that just seems to be wasting their lives? Don’t you know about the people who just seem to lack hope?
Toby
When we complain about the presence of God in a situation, God then tells us exactly what we do not want to hear. In verse 6:14, “God says, Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midean’s hand. Am I not sending you? “ When we ask God questions, God seeks to use us to answer our own questions. Sometimes the reason God is not in a place is that we have not chosen to bring God there. God’s word to us, “Yes I know about Glenville and you are to go and build a New Life Center to make a difference. Am I not sending you.” You see the New Life Center is possible, because God has sent us to do it.
Rick
Gideon’s response to God’s call is pretty much the same as our is. Gideon said, “Whoa God. Time Out . You are talking to Gideon, the farmer. How in the world can I save Israel. I am the youngest in my father’s house, and my family is way down on the social standing list. Nobody listens to what we have to say.” Aren’t you glad you don’t have to be somebody great to be used by God. You don’t even have to be a great or large church for God to say, “that’s the one I’ve chosen to do my will in this instance.” You know our building of the New Life Center, is not only a challenge, but it is also a special privilege granted by God. One day in heaven, people will be able to say, now that’s the group over there that God used to carry out his plan #52876 Operation New Life Center, and over there are all the people who got saved because of it.
Toby
When we look back over this past year, we can see how some of you underestimated the tremendous abilities God had placed inside of you. Each time we approached a leader to be on the campaign team, there was not a single person who boasted, “oh yeah I can handle it.” Gail and Shannon were both in shock when we asked them to be Campaign Directors. Shannon, was like are you sure that you want me to do this. Gail was convinced we were trying to get back at her for her many jokes during the past few years.
Rick
Sylvia and LaVerne wondered why they were chosen to try to organize pie-visits. What if people didn’t want to be visited in their homes. Helen and Estelle as our prayer directors had no idea that people would support the 24 hour prayer vigil in the manner they did. Pat and Felicia, were both saying, well if you really think we can do it, we’ll try it. Gloria and Evelyn as administrative support were feeling they already had more than enough work to do. Yet all the stuff needed was squeezed in. Althea and Sandra could not have given us a better Leadership Banquet than they did. Andrea and Elizabeth as our Celebration Team directors thought up ideas that gave us a great Celebration Sunday. Dave and Gerald kept us alive with the necessary communication pieces. Walter and Katy as Follow up directors continue to help keep us on course.
Toby
None of them were of great significance in their own eyes, but the Lord had already declared them to be mighty warriors, so it did not matter to us when they were unsure of whether or not they could do the job. Gideon was pointing out his weaknesses, but the Lord cut his arguments short by saying, “I will be with you and you will strike down all the Midianites together.” What has brought us through this first year has been that the Lord has been with us. The leadership team he gave to us a church, equipped us for ministry in some ways that some of you didn’t think possible. You didn’t know you could lead an hour prayer session. You didn’t know you had skills to visit people in their homes. Without the celebration Sunday, we would still not know of the tremendous gifts of decoration that some of you had.
Rick
It was the culmination of how great the Leadership Team organized us a congregation for the campaign, that the seeds for starting New Life Fellowship Church were starting to grow. With so many of you rising in your commitment level and call to ministry, we simply could not let you drop back into the woodwork. God’s call upon many of you, provided the nucleus for us to have a congregation at New Life during its first six months of ministry. Your going over to help get things started was a tremendous blessing, and some of you are still helping out by periodically attending church twice on Sunday.
Toby
We want you to know your efforts have encouraged the hearts of people in our denominational headquarters in Louisville. Our national leadership wants to invest in the vision for the church and they recently approved a three year proposal for funding New Life Fellowship Church. That would not have been possible without your faithfulness. Our church’s vision for the New Life Center at first did not include starting another church, but we think God threw in New Life Fellowship to simply to increase our faith, and to help us understand we are involved in something much larger than we have imagined. My friends, with God its possible.
Rick
Gideon had no idea that morning when he got up that his life would be forever changed. He came into that winepress a scared farmer. He went out knowing that God had called Him a mighty warrior. Now when you’ve got the combination of a mighty warrior and a Mighty God, it’s pretty hard to lose. Later that night, God told Gideon, “I want you to take your father’s second prized 7 year old bull, tear down your father’s altars to Baal and the false God Asherah, build me and altar and then sacrifice the bull on it.
Toby
Now Gideon liked all that stuff about being a mighty warrior, but this is a mighty big risk God is asking him to take. This would be the equivalent of his father having built a very expensive little church where everybody in the community came to worship a false God. His father would own a bulldozer, that was very expensive. Gideon was being told to use his father’s bulldozer to tear down the church, and then build another little church with God’s name on it and then demolish the bulldozer as a gift to God. Can you understand why Gideon, the youngest one is his father’s house might be a little scared to obey God? His father would be furious with him.
Rick
Gideon overcame his fear and got his own Campaign Leadership Team made up of 10 others. They went and destroyed the altars and set up the altar to God. You see Gideon and his leadership team had to make sure they had their priorities in order before trying to do something great for God. We did the same thing here at Glenville, when we asked the campaign leaders to step out in faith and declare their priorities with their giving before we asked the congregation. You see the way we go about making our pledges is actually determined by what we feel is the most important way to spend our money. Some of you have postponed decorating your homes, some have postponed replacing your cars, some have scaled back on the number of times going out to eat, some are talking of scaling back at Christmas time We have to position ourselves to be used by God and take risks.
Toby
The next morning when the people saw that their idols had been destroyed, they were furious. When they found out Gideon was responsible, they were ready to kill him. They demanded that he be brought forth and put to death When we do what God wants us to do, it does not mean that everything is going to fall in place. Since we made the biggest pledge of our lives to the New Life Center, we’ve had car repairs of $2,600 , $950, $385 in addition to a $1700 expense we had not expected to come up. But those setbacks have not caused our commitment to waiver. Of the $20,000 we pledged, somehow we have still managed to pay $12,000 on it.
Rick
Gideon didn’t know what was going to happen when his father found out the truth. To his astonishment, his father who had lost the most money of all through Gideon’s actions spoke up on his behalf. His father said, “Nobody is going to put Gideon to death for tearing down Baal’s altar, if Baal is truly a god, let Baal fight for himself.” Gideon had no idea that God would move upon his father’s heart to utter such words. The amazing thing about God, is that person who we think is least likely to be used by God, may already have been touched by the power of God at our moment of need. We never know who God is going to touch to come to our aid in our point of crisis.
Toby
Gideon was so encouraged by God’s deliverance that now he was ready to take on the Midianites, at least so he thought he was. He gave the call in the city, and sent out messengers through the tribes of Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali to let’s unite and take back what is rightfully ours from God. A lot of people got excited and said we are with you. Let’s get ready to move forward in God. We can see the victory. With God all things are possible. Now when everybody showed up, the good news is that there were 32,000 people ready to take on the Midianites. None of the four judges before Gideon including Deborah had raised more than 10,000 people for battle. So 32,000 volunteers was a reason for rejoicing. The bad news is that there was an army of 135,000 Midianites willing to fight against them. Now when you compared the numbers, there was cause for some rejoicing, thank the Lord for 32,000 but there was a reason for some concern as well.
Rick
We sort of felt we knew a little bit of how Gideon felt. Last year after Celebration Sunday, we were rejoicing greatly at the $340,000 in pledges that we had received. Not only was that larger than the church’s budget, it was also ten times larger than any pledge program we have received for any project. But the bad news is that our project is going to cost about $725,000. The good news is that we have placed ourselves like Gideon in a situation where God has to grant us a miracle to complete what he told us to do.
Toby
Gideon was a little scared based on what he saw on paper and what God was telling him to do. How could he stretch 32,000 men to defeat 135,000?. So he said, “now God, just to make sure You’re with me and you’ll give me the victory, I’m going to give you a test. I’ll put a piece of wool on the ground at night. In the morning when I wake up, if you’re with me, let the ground be dry, and the wool be wet.” Next morning, that thing was full of a bowl of water, but the ground was completely dry. But Gideon, said, “now Lord don’t get upset with me, but let me give you just one more test. Now when I put this on the ground tonight, let the whole ground be wet, but let the wool be dry.” Next morning, the ground was soaked, but the wool was dry. Gideon was now ready. He was saying “With God, It’s Possible.”
Rick
The only problem with giving God a test, is God will then turn around and give us one in return. He said Gideon, “you have too many people with you. If I let you win with all these people, the people will say look what we did and not give me a bit of the credit. I want you to tell everybody who is in the least bit afraid to go on back home.” Can you imagine Gideon’s first reaction. “But God who isn’t afraid. We have 32,000 and they have 135,000” God probably reminded Gideon but you also have Me and they don’t.
Toby
Now remember, everybody had said, yes I’m ready for the battle let’s go for it. When Gideon said, “Look, I know some of you made a quick decision and may have regretted. Anybody that’s afraid, I want you to know that you can go home right now and there will be no bad feelings about it. To Gideon’s amazement somebody yelled out “Praise God. Thank you Lord” Twenty two thousand packed up their bags and went home. Now all of them had said they were willing to go the distance, but some of them never even started.
Rick
22 of us who turned in pledged sheets last year saying God you can count on me have been like the 22,000 who have gone home in fear. Although they pledged $29,726 nothing has come in from them on their pledges. It was quite a setback for us and for Gideon to have those people drop out of the campaign. But if you’re in this category today we invite you to step up and still make a difference for Christ. If all you have is a dollar, drop it in and get started.
Toby
But the loss of 22,000 was not the end of the ordeal. God told Gideon, “you still have too many people with you. Take the people down to the water to drink. I want you to separate those who lap the water with their tongues like dogs, from those who kneel to drink. This time 300 lapped with their hands and 9,700 got down on their knees to drink. Which group do you think God said could be dismissed.
Rick
We are not sure why God made the choice of the 300. Were they committed to getting the task done no matter what. We have 186 adults and 35 youth who have committed themselves to going forward with the New Life Center. Gideon had an army left that was 1/10th of it’s original size in terms of men, but it still had the same amount of power as it did when God told him, “oh mighty warrior you go and deliver the people from Midian”. Sure we have had some people drop out, but some are going to get back in and still others have come in who were not previously a part. But the power to build the New Life Center is just as strong as it ever was. We still need a miracle from the Lord just as Gideon did.
Toby
It wasn’t until the actual day of battle that Gideon saw the final pieces of what God was going to do. Those three hundred men entered battle with a pitcher, a torch and a trumpet. Their instructions were to watch for the signal, blow the trumpet smash the pitcher and let God do the rest. God sent a panic among the Midianities and they turned against each other in fear. The battle was the Lord’s battle and He did for Gideon all that had been promised.
Rick
Saints not only do we need you to be faithful with your pledges already made, some of us need to reexamine and ask that I really make a sacrifice for God in my pledge. Some of us never made a pledge and we need to commit to bringing this vision into reality. Gideon found that when God is on your side, all kinds of things become possible. Gideon left a legacy of what happens to a nation when somebody chooses to team up their lives with God.
Toby
Our New Life Center is going to be an investment in the kingdom of God. It’s purpose will further our purpose which is to bring people into a right relationship with God, and to equip them for the ministry of Jesus Christ, by teaching the word and by providing opportunities to worship, fellowship and serve God in a loving and caring community.
