All right, if you would open up your Bibles to the book of Judges, in your pew Bible,
it's page 242.
We got some real estate that we're going to cover this morning, but I got a question for
you.
For those of you who have driven, driven cars, do you know what happens when your alignment
is out of whack?
You're going to pull to the left or pull to the right.
Now, if your alignment to Christ is out of whack, if he's not the controlling center
of your life, do you know what happens?
You're going to pull one of two ways.
You're going to either pull towards a fullness of fear of others, or you're going to pull
towards being full of yourself.
And we're going to see that in our next judge this morning, Gideon.
Gideon embodies both a fullness of fear of other people, a ruling fear, and then we're
also going to see that he becomes full of himself.
But there's also a moment where we will see him full of faith.
He is the next imperfect Savior who accomplishes a temporary salvation.
And if you're just joining us this morning, as we've been making way through the book of
Judges, we are seeing judge after judge, imperfect after imperfect man being used by God to accomplish
a temporary salvation.
And with Gideon, we go from bad to worse.
This is a turning point in the book of Judges.
Judges, what follows is Abimelech, and then Jephthah, and then Samson, and these guys.
It's amazing that God works at all.
God's people are faithless, and yet God remains faithful.
In Judges 6 through 8, there are actually four acts, like a play, acts of a play.
And each act has a number of scenes.
So I'm going to walk us through at a brisk pace, but then we're going to get to a point
where I'm going to ask and answer this question, what does this mean for us today?
And there's going to be a warning, and there's going to be a wooing.
How do we keep ourselves from being ruled by fear?
How do we keep ourselves from being full of ourselves?
Full of faith in our perfect King and Savior, Jesus.
So let's look at Acts 1.
This is Judges 6, 1 through 10.
Act 1 has a couple scenes, and it sets the stage for the debut of Gideon.
But this is more of an introduction.
And scene 1 in verses 1 through 6 is something we've seen again and again.
The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, verse 1.
We'll be told what that evil is in a second.
And then what God responds because of his jealous anger, he loves his people.
And so what he does is he gives them over to the hand of the Midianites.
And they are one of three people groups, a Canaanite coalition.
The Midianites, we're going to see also the Amalekites, the people from the east.
God hands them over to them, and this is what happens in verses 2 through 5.
Like a swarm of locusts, these peoples come at the harvest.
And what they do is they start eating up all the grain.
And it puts Israel into famine situation.
It's oppressive.
So they hide in the mountains.
After seven years of this oppression, verse 6, Israel cries out to God.
So that's kind of scene 1 of Act 1.
And then what we expect next because of the book of Judges is for God to raise up a deliverer.
But there's a new development here.
In verses 7 through 10, God sends an unnamed prophet.
And look what this unnamed prophet says.
Thus says the Lord.
This is verse 8.
The God of Israel, I led you from Egypt.
And I brought you out of the house of slavery.
And I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians.
And from the hand of all who oppressed you.
And I drove them out before you.
And I gave you their land.
And I said to you, I am the Lord your God.
You shall not fear the gods of the Amorites and whose land you dwell.
Now, what the prophet is saying is reminding them on behalf of God of what God has done.
You're my people.
I have delivered you.
I'm your savior and king.
Again and again.
You see those eyes repeated.
And the new development is, but you have not obeyed my voice.
This is just getting at this spiraling down that we see through the book of Judges of the people of Israel.
I've done all this for you, but you continue to reject me.
And he points to the evil in his sight.
You've taken on these other gods.
The goddess of the Amorites.
Baal and Esherah.
So act one starts with the setting of a stage.
Israel is again disobedient.
What's going to happen?
Instead of standing out, they blend in to the Canaanites.
It's Canaanization.
Act two.
And this is in verses 11 through 32 of chapter six.
Gideon's debut.
And Gideon debuts to mixed reviews.
Scene one.
It takes place in the town of Ophrah.
Not to be confused with Oprah.
Ophrah.
In verses 11 through 18, the angel of the Lord comes to Ophrah to call Gideon to rescue Israel from the hand of Midian.
In verses 11 and 12, we see a little tongue-in-cheek from the angel of the Lord.
Because Gideon is beating out wheat.
Do you see where he's beating out wheat?
He's beating out in a wine press.
He should be beating it out in a threshing floor.
Do you know why it's in a wine press?
Because he's hiding.
So the angel of the Lord says, look how he addresses him.
The Lord is with you, almighty man of valor, who is beating out wheat in a wine press.
It's a little tongue-in-cheek.
Immediately, it starts making you wonder, who is this Gideon guy?
Gideon responds, a little sassy himself.
In verse 13.
And Gideon said to him, please my Lord, if the Lord is, quote-unquote, with us, why then has all this happened to us?
And where are all the, quote-unquote, wonderful deeds, quote-unquote, that our fathers recounted to us?
That generation of Joshua that has now passed away.
Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?
But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.
This isn't a strong start for Gideon.
He is questioning God's faithfulness.
He is seeing the circumstances that he's in.
And he doesn't seem to recognize that what the prophet has just said,
that this people has not been obeying the voice.
That's why they're there in this situation.
He's blaming God instead of taking responsibility for what he's contributed to them being in this situation.
God seems to ignore that in verse 14 and says,
Do I not send you?
And in verse 15, Gideon kind of flips the script a little bit and kind of goes,
Woe is me.
What?
Go?
Verse 15.
How can I save Israel?
Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I'm the least in my father's house.
I'm a nobody.
I am of a clan of nobodies in the tribe of Manasseh.
What can you possibly do with me?
This is fear.
This is unbelief.
This is not what one would expect.
This is not a flattering picture of Gideon.
So Gideon, God says to him,
But I will be with you.
God doesn't rub Gideon's back and say,
Oh, you have a low self-esteem.
You're so special.
He says,
I am with you.
And Gideon seems to have a little bit of a change of heart.
And then he puts God to the test.
We're going to see this again.
He says,
Show me a sign.
Show me a sign in verse 17 that it is you who speak with me.
And so then he prepares a meal in verses 18 through 24.
And he presents it to the angel of the Lord.
And the angel of the Lord touches it with his staff.
And it's consumed by fire.
And the angel of the Lord disappears.
And all of a sudden,
Gideon realizes he's been in the presence of God.
And he says,
Whoa, no!
I'm going to die!
I mean, this guy is on a roller coaster.
And God speaks to him.
Shalom.
Verse 23.
Peace be to you.
Do not fear.
Again, it's that fear that so characterizes Gideon.
You shall not die.
It's quite a scene, isn't it?
Scene 2 in verses 25 through 32 is just further development of the same.
God then calls Gideon to go destroy the altar of Baal and Asherah.
And what I want you to notice is whose altar it is.
In verse 25,
Take your father's bull and the second bull, seven years old,
and pull down the altar of Baal that your father has.
And cut down the Asherah that is beside it.
These are the gods of the Amorites.
His father, Joash, is a Baal worshiper.
And God is telling him,
You tear that down, and then you build an altar to me,
and you present, you offer the bull to me.
I'm your God.
Gideon grabs some guys and does that.
But did you notice when?
Look at verse 27.
But because he was too afraid
of his family
and the men of the town to do it by day,
he did it by night.
Fear.
He's full of fear.
Fear.
This debut is a debut of a man full of fear.
The men want to know who did this.
It turns out it was Gideon.
And so the men go and say to Joash,
Hey, give us your son.
We're going to kill him.
Where's Gideon?
He's Amai.
Hey.
His dad defends him.
Hey, if Baal wants to pick a fight,
let him fight his fights,
his dad says.
Gideon picks up an interesting name,
Jeroboam,
which means the one who Baal fights against
at this point.
Both scenes,
they point to this man Gideon
as being full of fear.
Afraid.
Afraid what people will do.
Afraid how people will respond
if he is faithful to his God.
Now everyone in this room
understands what it means
to be afraid of other people.
Don't we?
Christians and non-Christians alike.
You see, here's what's going on.
When you get God amnesia,
when you forget
who your God is,
when Jesus ceases to be
the controlling center of your life,
you are going to pull.
You're out of alignment.
And so here we see a man being pulled
to being afraid of other people,
being a fearful man.
Now if you're in the room
and you're not a Christian,
here's what you need to know.
Maybe you're thinking about
becoming a Christian.
You're going to need to lay down
what other people think about you
in order to be a follower of Jesus.
You need to deny yourself,
take up your cross,
and follow him.
Act 2 here is the debut of Gideon
and he's full of fear.
So let's move to Act 3.
Gideon's divine transformation.
Because there's a divine intervention.
He goes from being full of fear
to being full of faith.
Just look at 7.15 real quick.
Two words.
He worshipped.
Let's see what happens.
The first scene is in verses 33-35.
There's this drawing of the battle together.
We have the Canaanite coalition,
the Midianites, the Amalekites,
and the people of the east.
We know from chapter 8,
this is 135,000 men.
135.
Kenosha and some change.
And we also see that Gideon is there
and he has a group of
a partial coalition of Israel.
Not all of the tribes,
just part of them.
It just kind of goes to the
disunity happening among the nation.
Manasseh, verse 35,
Asher, Zebulun, Naphtali.
But the thing that you need to know,
the X factor.
Oh, by the way,
there's only 22,
no, 32,000 of the Israelite soldiers.
135,000.
32,000.
The X factor, of course,
is this spirit of the Lord
who clothes Gideon.
Scene 2, 36-40.
Gideon is very aware of the numbers.
And then he goes into
the whole fleecing incident.
Do you remember this?
God has told him,
go, I'm sending you,
I'm with you.
It's a command and a promise.
And Gideon,
he balks.
Notice, it starts with an if.
36,
If you will save Israel by my hand,
as you have said.
If, though,
I need more proof.
This isn't obedience.
This is balking.
This is a waffling.
This is a man,
again,
showing his fear.
He's not trusting the Lord,
but testing the Lord.
And so he says,
hey,
I'm going to lay out
a fleece of wool,
and when I wake up,
hey,
if it's packed with water,
then I'll know it's you.
And God does it.
Verse 38,
it was so.
And so you think
he's going to go out
in battle, right?
No.
Look what he does.
He's like,
then Gideon said to God,
let not your anger
burn against me.
Let me just speak
one more thing.
Could you just do it again?
Just this time,
keep the fleece dry
and all the ground
wet around it.
And God does it.
It's so.
You know what this points to?
If you are a Christian
who are putting out
fleeces to God,
the intention's great.
You see it in your Bible,
right?
But the actual thing
going on here
is unbelief.
This is not an example
to emulate.
This is Gideon
in fear
putting God
to the test.
And yet God,
he's so merciful,
he does it,
but I've got to be honest
with you.
God's got something
else rolling.
who's fleecing who?
Check out what happens next.
So you think coming out
of this,
Gideon's like,
okay,
let's go to the battlefield.
But we know that he's
a little iffy.
And then,
this happens.
Look at verse chapter 7.
This is scene 3.
God exposes Gideon's fear.
Just imagine
if you're Gideon.
Knowing what you know
about his givenness
to fear,
check it out.
The day arrives,
verse 1.
They're getting ready
for battle.
In verse 2,
God says,
wait, time out.
You know what,
Gideon?
They got 135,000.
We've got 32 grand.
I'll tell you what,
we just got too many.
Too many.
If you're Gideon,
what's going on in you
at this point?
You're having your fears
exposed is what's going on.
And so,
God,
he says,
if anybody's afraid,
let them go home.
It's actually
out of Deuteronomy 20
where God makes this provision
to all of Israel's armies
that if there's any soldier,
they're afraid they go home
because they don't want
fear spreading among the ranks.
Do you know what the irony is?
Jeroboam is afraid.
Gideon is afraid.
So,
22,000 say,
I'm afraid.
I'm out of here.
Leaving 10 grand left.
And so,
now we've gone from
135k
against 10k.
And then,
verses 4 through 8 happens.
the people are still
too many.
We got too many.
And so,
with a kind of a drinking
of the water test,
God winnows his troops
down from 10,000
to 300.
135,000
against 300.
Now,
the question is,
why?
Why?
What is going on here?
Two reasons.
Look at verse 2.
God says to Gideon,
that first drawdown,
the people with you
are too many for me
to give the Midians
into their hand,
lest Israel boast over me,
saying,
my own hand has saved me.
See what's going on there?
God's saying,
all glory goes to me.
I'm winnowing the troops down,
so there's no question
who's going to win this victory.
It's going to be me.
Do you see it?
The other reason why
is to expose Gideon's fear.
Gideon came out of the fleece incident
thinking,
okay,
and now God just pulls the fleece
right out from underneath him.
You're going to have to trust me, Gideon.
In scene 4,
in verses 9 through 18,
God not only addresses Gideon's fear,
he encourages him.
Verse 9, chapter 7,
that same night,
the Lord said to him,
arise, go down against the camp,
for I have given them into your hand.
Wait, but Gideon, 10.
But,
but if you're afraid
to go down,
God knows Gideon.
God knows you.
But if you're afraid,
you can take a buddy.
You can bring a friend,
your servant, Purah,
and when you go down there,
listen to what they say.
And so they get down to the camp,
and verse 13,
there is this Midianite soldier on duty,
and look what he says.
He shares a dream that he has.
Behold, I dreamed a dream.
And behold,
a cake of barley bread,
not,
not the most imposing feature,
a loaf of bread.
A cake of barley bread
tumbled into the camp of Midian,
and came to the tent,
and struck it so,
that it fell,
and turned it upside down,
so that the tent lay flat.
He's obviously
kind of upset about this.
And then this other
Midianite soldier
gives the interpretation
of the dream,
to which he says,
this is no other than
the sword of Gideon,
the son of Joash,
a man of Israel.
God has given into his hand
Midian and all the camp.
This is God encouraging Gideon.
You know what's amazing about this?
God has personally spoken to Gideon.
God has used an angel of the Lord
to speak to Gideon.
God has sent a prophet
raising up issues.
And it's only when it comes
from the mouth
of two Midianite soldiers
that Gideon believes.
Verse 15,
as soon as Gideon heard
the telling of the dream
in its interpretation,
he worshiped.
Here's a man full of faith
all of a sudden.
His fears have been transformed
into faith.
God has intervened
mercifully,
graciously.
He's exposed the fear
and then encouraged him
in the fear.
He's come out of this thinking,
God is at work.
And then when you look down
at what happens next,
he rallies his troops.
He blows the shofar.
He, troops,
come on together.
All 300 of you.
Breaks them into three divisions,
gives them some strange instructions,
and then he's like,
follow me.
He's a man clothed by the Spirit.
But what happens next,
in verses 19 through 25,
is actually the battle.
Gideon's 300,
this is nighttime,
they surround the Valley of Jezreel,
they surround the camp
of 135,000.
And Gideon blows his shofar.
And everybody else.
And then they smash the jars,
and there's a torch inside.
And so all of a sudden,
there's light shining.
And so in the middle of the night,
Gideon has surrounded
this huge army,
and now they are kind of
making this incredible sound.
And all of a sudden,
there's these lights
all around them,
and God uses it
to set this
Canaanite coalition
into great confusion.
They draw their swords,
and they start killing each other.
Do you know what's in the hands
of Gideon's 300?
Not swords.
A shofar,
a trumpet,
and a lamp.
God routes
this 135,000 people,
and it doesn't look like
this 300 draws a sword
on the battlefield.
It's an incredible win
for God.
They put this army on the run.
They call in the other 10,000,
Naphtali, Asher, Manasseh.
They're like,
hey, let's go get them.
So they all go and get them.
Gideon texts his friends
in Ephraim and say,
hey, we got them on the run.
Let's go.
So the Ephraim army joins in.
The Ephraim army,
they track down two princes
of Midian,
Oreb and Zeb.
They capture them,
kill them,
bring their heads back
to Gideon.
It's gruesome.
God's got the victory.
Who's the hero?
God's the hero.
God has not just
beaten 135,000
with shofars and lamps.
He has seemingly beaten
Gideon's fearful heart.
Which brings us into Act 4.
We've gone now from
Gideon's debut,
a mixed review,
a man full of fear,
to Gideon's transformation,
divine intervention.
He's a man full of faith.
And now,
Gideon's demise.
There's something new about him
we're going to see.
He's full of something,
for sure.
Let's see what it is.
Scene 1,
chapter 8,
verses 1 through 3.
The Ephraimites
take issue with Gideon
and they're saying,
hey man,
what's your problem?
Why didn't you call us in
when you were getting
in the battle?
And what Gideon does,
it's not fear of people here.
He does something else.
Verse 2,
what have I done now
in comparison with you?
Look down at verse 3.
What have I been able to do
in comparison with you,
Ephraim?
You know what that is?
Flattery.
He's manipulating them.
He's not afraid,
he's flattering.
The next scene is in verses,
starts in verse 4.
Gideon is now chasing
two kings,
not princes,
kings of Midian,
Ziba and Zalmunna,
and he's crossed the Jordan
and he's got a tired
bunch of dudes.
And so he goes
to the men of Succoth
and then he's going to go
to the men of Penuel
and he's going to ask
for some kind of refreshment
for his guys.
And the men of Succoth,
in verse 5,
they say to him,
well he says to them,
please give loaves of bread.
My dudes are exhausted.
And the officials of Succoth
in verse 6 say,
are the hands of Ziba
and Zalmunna
already in your hand
that we should give bread
to your army?
In other words,
Gideon,
I think you're counting
your chickens
before they're hatched.
I don't see any king
with you.
They're intentionally
not participating.
It would have made
anybody mad.
And then the people
of Penuel
do the same thing.
He said to the men
of Penuel,
well,
verse 8,
they answer to him
the same way
as the men of Succoth
and with both of them
he threatens them.
There's going to be
some consequences
to this, guys.
I've got to go
chase these kings.
And what we see
is this threateningness
happening.
He's not afraid of them.
Something's changed
in Gideon.
He's full of something.
It's going to become
clearer as we go.
Scene 3,
verses 10-12.
Gideon and his boys
catch up to the kings,
Ziba and Zalmunna.
They capture them.
And then the next scene
is they bring them back.
They bring them back
to the men of Succoth,
the men of Penuel.
And he says in verse 15,
Behold Ziba and Zalmunna,
men of Succoth,
about whom you taunted me,
saying,
Are the hands of Ziba and Zalmunna
already in your hand
that we should give bread
to you men
who are exhausted?
And then he takes
those 77 leaders
of Succoth
and he whips them publicly.
It's vindictive.
It's really harsh.
It's almost something
a king would do.
A Canaanite king.
And then,
with the men of Penuel,
he breaks down the tower
just like he said,
and he kills the men
of the city.
He kills,
by the way,
these are other Israelites.
This is over the top.
He's being harsh.
And if that's not enough,
the next scene,
scene 5,
verses 18-21,
now he's with
these two kings.
And he says,
Hey,
where are these people?
Where are the men
that you killed
at Mount Tabor?
And they're like,
well,
they're dead.
In verse 19,
he says,
They were my brothers,
the sons of my mother,
as the Lord lives.
He's swearing,
by God,
if you didn't do that,
I would have let you live.
And then he tells his son
to gut him.
His son doesn't.
So he does.
Gideon kills them.
And you're left saying,
this was personal.
This was vengeance.
This was Gideon taking vengeance
for what these men did
to his relatives.
This is not something
this man should have done.
Vengeance is mine,
says the Lord.
But it gets worse.
The next scene,
in verses 22-28,
the men of Israel
said to Gideon,
Rule over us.
Be our king.
You and your son
and your grandson.
Let's set up
a dynasty.
For you have saved us
from the hand of Midian.
Be our king.
And then,
in verse 23,
Gideon gives the right answer.
I will not rule over you
and my son will not
rule over you.
The Lord will rule over you.
Sounds great.
But here's the thing.
Gideon's actions
show otherwise.
Because what we see next
is this.
And then Gideon said to them,
Let me make a request
of you.
A request.
And then he has them all
give one of the gold earrings
of all of the men
that they have killed.
And what it amounts to
is a huge amount of gold.
43 pounds.
1.3 million dollars
on today's market.
And with that,
he makes an ephod.
It's probably an image.
Brings it back to
his hometown.
Not Oprah.
Ophrah.
And look what happens
in verse 27.
All Israel whored
after it there
and it became a snare
to Gideon
and to his family.
Remember what happened
in Ophrah to begin with?
Baal.
False worship.
And now there's
false worship again.
Goes from bad to worse.
There's one more thing
I want to point out
and then we'll bring
this thing to bear.
It happens in verses
29 through 32.
Gideon,
we're told in verse 30,
has 70 sons.
Seven zero sons.
I know what you're wondering.
How can one woman
bear 70 sons?
That's impossible.
Yes, it is.
And the reason why
he's had 70 sons
is because
he's had many wives.
Verse 30.
This was forbidden
of the kings
just generally.
One man,
one woman
for life and marriage.
But of the kings
of Israel.
They weren't to have
multiple wives.
Deuteronomy 17, 17.
Lest one turns
his heart from
the Lord.
And verse 31,
his concubine
who was in Shechem,
she was a Canaanite.
She bears him a son
and calls his name
Abimelech.
Great name.
Until you know
what it means.
You know what it means?
My dad is king.
My father is king.
Gideon
names his son
my father is king.
The same Gideon
who says,
I will not rule over you
but the Lord
will rule over you.
No.
You know what he's full of?
He's not full of fear.
He's not full of faith.
He's full of himself.
God,
this is pride.
All of this
flattery,
all of this
harshness,
all of this
vindictiveness,
all this
taxing
and creating
an image
for people to worship,
to think of yourself
as a king
when you're not.
He's pretending
to be a king.
It's all pride.
He's gone from
being full of fear
to full of faith
to full of pride.
You know what I think
happened?
This is speculation.
Remember verse 22,
rule over us,
you and your son
and your grandson also
for you have saved us
from the hand of Midian.
I think he believed it.
The very thing
that God said
he's going to winnow
his army down
so that no one
would question
who saved Israel
from Midian.
Oh man.
Gideon's demise
is that he's
full of himself.
This is pride.
In Gideon,
we see the good,
the bad,
and the ugly.
The good.
He worshipped.
He obeyed
at some point.
I mean,
he is in Hebrews 11
hall of faith.
But we see the bad
not just
he's full of fear.
God repeatedly
speaks to him
in his fear
again and again.
I'm with you.
I'm sending you.
The Lord is with you.
The ugly is
he's full of himself.
You know what happens
in chapter 8?
God never speaks once.
God's speaking
all over the place
in 6 and 7
addressing his fear
but God doesn't speak
once in his pride.
God opposes the proud
but gives grace
to the humble.
Gideon is an
imperfect
savior.
A pretend
king.
And God uses him
still to accomplish
a temporary salvation.
But you know
who the real hero is?
God.
Yahweh.
The one who calls
Gideon.
The one who exposes
Gideon's fear.
The one who encourages
Gideon.
The one who
miraculously delivers
Israel from
the Midianites
with just 300
and no swords
drawn.
This God
who delivered
Israel from Midian
he took on flesh.
he became a man
and walked among us.
He lived a perfect life
that none of us
could ever live
and then he died
on the cross
in the place
of sinners
for our being held
in the grip
of the fear of man
for being held
in the very hand
of being full
of ourselves.
He delivered us
from that.
He's no other
than Jesus Christ.
The greatest
hero
of all.
Jesus is the perfect
Savior
who has accomplished
a permanent
salvation.
Just think
of Gideon.
Full of fear.
Folded like a cheap suit.
Did things in the dark.
Think about Jesus.
Fearless.
Matthew 4
standing before
the devil himself
contending
resisting
not backing down
not shrinking back
pressing in.
Think of Jesus
before the Sanhedrin
and before Pilate.
He doesn't back down.
He stands his ground.
Think of Jesus
Matthew 27
when he's nailed
to the cross
he does so willingly.
not hiding
not asking
for signs
fearlessly
doing
the will
of his father
and he's doing
that today
and tomorrow
and forever.
He's totally
God
totally man
and he's alive
today.
The other thing
about
about Gideon
is that he was
full of himself.
Jesus was anything
but
he humbled himself.
Listen to
Philippians chapter 2.
Have this mind
among yourselves
which is yours
in Christ Jesus
who though
he was born
what was in the
form of God
did not count
equality with God
a thing to be grasped
but emptied himself
by taking the form
of a servant
being born
in the likeness of man
and being found
in human form
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient
to the point of death
even to death
on a cross.
He's the perfect king.
He wasn't full
of himself
he humbled himself
to accomplish
a perfect salvation
a forever salvation
not the
chapter 8
verse 28
for 40 years
for forever years.
You know what that means?
Jesus is the
perfect savior
the true king
the rightful king
the forever king.
who accomplished
our salvation
forever.
So we can say
by your hand
you have saved us
from ourselves.
What does this mean
for us?
The warning is this
for those of us
in the room
who are prone
to be full
of fear
rules you
keeps you up
at night
it's a temptation
common to man
do you know
what you're being
called to do?
Instead of hide
and be silent
and exercise
false humility
you're to confess
that
to the Lord
you're to repent
of that
that has no place
in ruling your heart
when Jesus
is the controlling
center
of your
heart
of your being
it's this
fear of others
that needs to be
confessed
and repented of.
The other side
of this
is being full
of yourself
pride
being a flatterer
being a manipulator
seeking vengeance
when that belongs
to the Lord
you need to
confess your pride
you need to
repent of your pride
turn from it
Gideon didn't
when you forget
your God
when you have
this God amnesia
when you forget
that Jesus
is the controlling
center of your life
you will either
be a man fearer
or revere yourself
so how do we
keep from doing that?
Here's the wooing
Jesus is the
treasure of your heart
fullness of faith
in Jesus
and when you are
trusting in Jesus
and he's the controlling
center of your life
these other things
get crowded out
daily remind yourself
of him
daily thank him
for what he's done
in you
what he's doing
and when you do
these stir longings
in your heart
for your king
and they put
to death
fear of man
fullness of yourself
there's a warning
and a wooing
we must heed
which way do you pull?
do you pull?
do you pull
towards fearing
what people think
about you?
or do you pull
towards being
full of yourself?
we see both
in Gideon
and what we see
in Jesus
is the only way
forward
fullness of faith
in our perfect
savior and king
Jesus
the ultimate deliverer
let's pray together
God
we thank you
for the example
of Gideon
we see
how he did
model faith
to some degree
but we also
heed his example
fearing man
being full of himself
and God
we turn from that
that is not
who we want to be
that's not who
you've
called us to be
God
would you fill us
clothe us
by your spirit
so that we would
walk in the victory
you have won
in Jesus name
we pray
amen
you