God’s Got This!

Candles, feel free to head back, many of you are heading now. I have to tell you, there’s joy in my heart. The couple that was standing here and sharing this moment with us, Bob and Pam George. A little known story maybe, but Pam actually arrived, they have five kids and they came one Sunday when Debbie and I were brand new and in fact had not been officially called to come here as a pastor. And we met in the park that Sunday I recall.

At Summer Lake Park we had a gathering there and one of my Sundays, one of two, to candidate as they call it in church speak, to be the potential pastor that you would ask to come, was in the park. And so Pam came to spy, I think, or scout, the new guy and Bob came a short time later, had some responsibilities to wrap up and it’s just been a joy. We’ve been really great friends and best friends and I’ve had the privilege of marrying several other children and it’s just, they’re amazing. – Yeah, so we love you. We love you and thanks for the nostalgic moment.

Speaking of great moments, I don’t know if this is a good comparison but thanks to Vicki Kenez and an army of her best friends and my best friends, this church worship center we call it, became something right out of a Hallmark movie. I mean it’s really, isn’t that great? It’s really cool. (audience applauds) – One more than that, if you’re not married and thinking about it, this is a perfect time to do it, you guys. I mean, you don’t need flowers, you don’t need nothing.

Just get in here and you got a minister, we can pull this thing off. And what a great time and place. And you know what, let me just get out of the way ’cause this is the real deal right here. I mean, that’s really special. If you do come up and have a look or your children want to, come with them.

Because those are very special, we call it the Holy Family, respectfully. So it’s a careful thing but it’s a good thing. And can I give one more personal thing? Right now, he’s two in the morning on Monday but my son turned 28 today. And yeah, it’s really cool.

It’s like another one of those things where you can’t share it together. He’s 9,210, miles from here but happy birthday Trevor and I love you. In fact, it was this day, 28 years ago, he was born. It was a Sunday that year as well. And so some of you may still remember John Ribaly preaching on my behalf.

We had the plan in place and I said, it’s not gonna happen, you know, John, but just in case, and sure enough, that morning it was go time. And so John preached for me and he’s still here. So it’s really kind of a fun, nostalgic morning for me. So I wanna transition this morning into the message that God’s given me. And we’re gonna share communion as you can tell in a little bit.

And that’ll be a really special time like the Georgia sharing now. But I want you to think about stuff you face where you, situation in front of you, has you wondering, maybe scratching your head and trying to determine if you have the resources to work with to make it happen. And some of you hopefully are thinking of ideas right now. You’re thinking about work tomorrow. Or you’re thinking about overcoming a situation that continues to sort of trip you up.

Or maybe you’re thinking about a complex relationship that you’re thinking, I don’t know how I’m gonna do that. I just don’t have the idea in mind. It’s not clear how I’m gonna pull that off. Some of you might be thinking financial stuff. It’s a situation where it has you kind of going, I’m gonna give it a go or I’m not even sure I can do that because I’m not sure that the pieces I need in place can pull this off.

So sometimes we think about things like that. We think in terms of categories like money. Take a bill that you have. Not something, some exotic, like a new car trips on place. Or just a plain bill.

You might wonder, do I have the money I need to pay that bill? Or for you, it might be time time. Can I spare the time to do something that’s important, that needs to happen, but it’ll take time. And I’m just, I’m swamped. Can I do that?

Maybe ability is the biggest one of all. Where we sort of self-assess and wonder, do I have the skills to do something or say something that I’m drawn to but not sure I can do. All right, maybe you’ve heard this saying. God does not call the qualified. He qualifies the called.

Now all of a sudden takes away the need for a degree or something like that. It certainly removes the need for seminary or something. Not seminaries are fine, by the way. All right, so there’s a list of people in our Bibles that you could actually say that of. That he did not call, he did not call a highly qualified top candidate.

Not at all. But he tapped somebody and then transformed them into what it would be and take to pull it off. This list is much longer, but you probably heard pieces of it along the way. Take Noah right out of the gate. He drank too much.

Just being honest, he did, didn’t he? And wouldn’t that be a cause to go, no, go around him, find somebody else. Okay, let’s go on. Abraham, how do you set in motion a big plan of epic Everest-sized plan on a guy that’s nice? He was really windy.

Really? No take away of 90 year olds, dad. So Abraham, he was too old. Isaac, get your head in the game. He’s a dreamer.

The list goes on to include Jacob. He lied. Forked tongue. Can you count on him? I don’t know.

Joseph. Not through anything he did except that he was kind of a bratty little brother. I would not have liked a brother like that ’cause I was the brother like that actually, so for the record. But he was abused. And then of course you have Moses who had a stuttering problem.

I don’t, what will I say? Came words from the greatest leader arguably of all time. And then there’s Gideon who was afraid. So this morning, let’s take a closer look at the last one I just mentioned Gideon. And if you have your Bibles or a Bible app, would you turn in it to judges six, seven, and eight?

All that, but we will capture a few of the important pieces of Gideon’s story. My title today is God’s got this. Anything you’re thinking about? And certainly it applies. In fact, I get it’s the source of everything I’m saying to you from God’s word.

So Gideon chapter six. While you’re turning there, turning to find that location in the Old Testament. You need to know Gideon was one of 12 judges that spanned 325 years from the time of Joshua’s passing to the sort of arrival, if you will, on the scene of Israel’s first king or a Samuel first prophet. And then what followed Saul and David and beyond that. So that’s a 325 year span.

And he’s almost square in the middle. He’s the fifth, He arrives 200 years after Joshua had died and get this, you need to know this, Israel by that time in 200 years had fallen fast and far into spiritual darkness. It was not a good time. It was also the time of the Midianites. They were an enemy that was supposed to have been completely eliminated if you read Numbers 31 later today you’ll find the details.

But for reasons that God resisted and opposed and Moses called out, some of them were allowed to remain these Midianites. So by the time of Gideon fast forward now, you can see that they have grown big by the narrative we’re about to read. They had become in fact vast in number and vicious in their opposition and hardship that they caused Israel. Chapter 6 verse 1, “The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and for seven years God gave them into the hands of the Midianites.” Because the power of the Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared.

This is what they had to do. “Do to live.” They prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefs and caves and strongholds. They’re hiding to survive. Verse 3, “Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites and the Malachites, these are people from the east.”

Just think of them as you got Israel and then to the east of them, folks from those lands and south would be the Midianites invaded their country. So the Israelites have planted their crops quietly hoping to harvest them and actually desperately in need of their food. The Midianites and the Malachites and others spoiled all of that. So they camped on the land and ruined crops all the way to Gaza. That means the mayhem caused by the Midianites was all the way from the eastern side of the Jordan all the way west to the Mediterranean and Gaza.

They just ransacked the place. Talk about not feeling like the people living at that time could get ahead. They camped on the land, ruined the crops all the way to Gaza, didn’t spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. Can you hear sort of an ethnic cleansing going on here? They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts, meaning there’s lots of them and they consume everything in their way.

It was impossible to count them or their camels. They invaded the land to ravage it. Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for his help. Vast, vicious, causing them to cry. Out to God.

Please do something. Rest to us. And let the record say they are in a spot of their own making. Let’s not forget how this chapter began. Still they did what I would do.

They cried out. They they said God this is bigger than us. We won’t survive this. And so God sees and he doesn’t have to look hard to see. He sees the struggle that they’re in and he sets in motion a plan that begins in the next verse to rescue them.

When the Israelites cried out to the Lord because of Midian he sent them a prophet who said this is what the Lord the God of Israel says. I brought you up out of Egypt out of the land of slavery. Talking about what he’s done and capable of doing. I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians and I delivered you from the hand of your oppressors. I drove them all out before you and gave you their land.

I said to you I’m the Lord your God. That’s who did this for you. So do not worship the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live. But you have not listened to me and the angel the Lord continued. He came and sat down under the oak in Ophra which is up in the valley east slightly from Carmel.

The northwest coast of Israel. That’s the location we’re talking about. This angel came and sat down under the oak in Ophra and that belonged to Joash the abbey as I wear his son. He named him better than he had. He was in a wine press to keep it from the Midianites.

This almost has an image of the work of Kory 10 boom in World War II to hide Jews who were fleeing for their lives. This is fascinating hiding place the story. I get that picture that Gideon is here just threshing wheat but in a wine press to keep it from the Midianites where they might not look for it. And verse 12 when the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon he said the Lord is with you mighty warrior. All right.

This scene reminds me it takes me back and we’re helped in that because we’re told to look back. Verse 9 does take us back to the days when God did a big rescue in the days of Moses. And in those days similar scene really. Israel was badly oppressed. It wasn’t good times.

It would be said of them. And that’s a terrible time to live as an Israeli Jew in Egypt because you were slaves and far less than people. And that season of suffering for you if you were one of them. It didn’t last a couple of years like we’ve been through and whatever we want to call the stuff we’ve been through. This lasted 430 years.

That was a long time. There’s no gain here. We’re not going to recover. 430 years of that. It’s all told in Exodus.

And their suffering in that time was horrendous. Chapter 2 of Exodus ends wonderfully. It says they cried out to God. I’ve got to read it for you. You don’t have to turn there.

I just want to make sure you can come. I want to hear the heart of God. Chapter 2 during that long period, the King of Egypt died. This is years earlier. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out.

And their cry for help because of their slavery. Listen to this. Went up to God. It went up to God. And God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant years earlier.

With Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. And the chapter ends this way. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them. Being concerned about somebody means you see their situation and you have this sadness in your view of their situation. You realize this is a very, very hard situation.

You don’t go, hey, you know, you did it. You do it yourself. This is a God that says I care about that. Can I stop for a second and say something to us today? It’s a good time to say it.

To be reminded that God sees what you’re going through. It does. It’s not an application point in my notes. That’s a reality we’ve lived more in this year than I’ve ever lived in my life. He sees the suffering and he doesn’t go.

Hope you guys buck up and hang in there. He comes alongside us. And he wants to come alongside anybody in a tough spot. If you ask my Debbie how she made it through this time, she will say God carried me. This time.

Which implies God saw me in this time and cared about me. And dispatched countless people like you. He does that still. So Moses is a guy tapped by God. And Moses, by the way, didn’t go great.

Just waiting to hear from you. God, here we go. No, you need to read chapter three of Exodus and chapter four. And you’ll see Moses going, what? No, no, I’m not.

No, I don’t have and five different times. No, God, I’m not the guy. You’ve got somebody else. You got me mixed up with somebody else. I can’t even talk.

I don’t even know who you are. Who are you? It just went on and on like that. Five times. What if they laugh at me?

What if, what if, what if, what if. All the reasons we all come up with. So was Gideon, that guy. He too struggled with God in similar ways. And it picks up right where we left off here in Judges six.

Look at verse 13 and see his first response. See verse 13, everybody. You just said, the Lord is with you mighty voice. Here. This is, see my hand.

This is pardon me. This is holed up, y’all. This is, are you for real? Me? Okay, I’m not making this up.

If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Most of us don’t hear the emotion of those words. We need to. Remember he’s in the wine press. He’s rushing wheat.

Trying to survive. Where are all the wonders that we’ve heard about in the Moses story? That’s what he’s getting at. People talk about that all the time. Been a long time since we saw that.

Got to feel the tone here. Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt? Our ancestors have told us. But now the Lord has abandoned us. He’s done doing cool.

Maybe it was a one time miracle. Maybe he’s used them up. I don’t know how deep his reaction was, but it was strong. It was human. It was Gideon going, no, no.

The Lord’s abandoned us in here. He’s actually given us into the hand of Midian. He’s blaming those words, by the way. We’re hesitant to say stuff like that. It doesn’t sound real churchy, but it’s real reality.

The Lord turned to him. See that? He’s been talking to an angel. The Lord turned to Gideon and said, go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midians hands. Am I not sending you?

Here he goes again. A part of me, Lord. How can I save Israel from the mess we’re in? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh and I am the least in my family. There you have it.

He sounds exactly like the Apostle Paul who says in 1 Corinthians 15, I was born. He’s talking about all these cool people that got to walk with Jesus. In the day and then here comes this late arrival. Untimely born, he calls himself. He says, I was the last and I was the least.

Those are two words of self-sort of kind of critique. I’m not a big deal. Well, Gideon leaves no doubt. He feels exactly the same way. I have doubts about being used by you.

I have doubts about you coming through. So then God makes a statement in verse 16 to respond to that. The Lord answered, I will be with you. I will be with you. And you will strike down all the immediate nights, leaving none alive.

The chapter goes on and finishes with Gideon saying, well, you know, I need proof. I need, you know, the fleeces and you need to read the rest of the chapter. It’s been a while since you read that. And then before Gideon’s hesitant heart gets settled, God reveals his strategy for victory over these Midianites that he’s going to tell him something now that’s supposed to be reassuring. But I’ve just put my sat in his seat all week again and I’m convinced it was anything but settling.

We turn to chapter seven now and you’ll see what I’m talking about here. Verse two, chapter seven of Judges, the Lord said to Gideon, you have too many men. You have this kind of, you’re going to laugh louder in a minute. I cannot deliver the Midian into your hands or Israel or Israel would boast against me. My own strength has saved me, they will talk.

Now announce to the army that you have anyone who trembles with fear about the prospects of facing the Midianites and turns back, they can leave Mount Gilead. No problem, no harm, no fire. And look how the verse ends. So 22,000 men left and went home and left him with how many? 10,000, will you please add those two numbers?

His top troop count was what? Yeah, there you go, 32,000 people, all right? So we got that peace in place. Midianites were a lot better bigger than this. Look at verse four, Lord said to Gideon, there are still too many men.

For real, most of them just left. Take them down to the water and I will thin out their ranks. If I say this one shall go with you, he shall go. But if I say this one shall not go with you, he shall not go. So Gideon took them in down to the water and the Lord told him, separate them this way.

Those who lap up the water with their tongues as a dog laps from those who kneel down to drink, okay? So what does a dog do? It sees water puts his head down in drinks. Others do it differently. Watch verse six, 300 of those men drink from cupped hands.

So they scoop, they get down, they get water and they’re doing this, cupped hands. All the rest got down on their knees to drink with me, probably not able military people. The others, 300 of them now. Lord said to Gideon, with these 300 men that lapped, I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands. So my numbers tell me he’s like 99%, they all left.

Got 300 left. And I will save you using those 300. Notice Gideon sent the rest of the Israelites home but kept the 300 who took over the provisions and trumpets of the others. All right. Let’s understand a few details.

I said Midianites were bigger. If you go to chapter eight, verse 10, you will see that they in fact are monstrous in size. 135,000 of them, okay? So you got a hundred 135,000 before all this thinning went on. There was about a one to four, one good guy to four bad guys.

One Israel four Midianites, okay? After all this, the guys went home, the numbers changed. It’s one to 450. So there’s one good guy to 450 bad guys. You’re about to watch, yesterday was the state high school football championship game.

To all attend versus central Catholic. I don’t even know how it turned out. Central Catholic, yeah. They got God on their side, that’s why. So anyway, I just say, you just go on.

No take away if you’re from to all of them. You don’t have Catholic in your name. But anyway, here’s the deal. That would be like yesterday’s championship game was twice in versus the Raiders. That’s a bad example.

They would have probably. Thanks for stating the obvious. So no, you got, you get what I mean. It’s like it’s the numbers are not in your favor. You’ll get it killed.

If you’re a high school team and take on an NFL team, they will have their way. And you will lose badly. It’s exactly what these numbers look like. However, what wasn’t good according to God was too many men are gonna cause you to do something I can’t have have you do. And that’s to trust in you.

To not have your eyes on the core truth that I’m trying to teach you. I’ve got this. I put you, I could argue whether I cause this problem with the Midianites. I don’t, I’m speaking as God right now. Of course he didn’t.

But I want to keep you from saying, Hey, we whooped him. 300 of us, that’s all it took. You see in the truth here, it didn’t take even 300. God was trying to get their attention like he’s getting ours and saying, I’ve got this. You’re in over your head.

The numbers are not on your side in whatever scenario you started thinking about this morning. Can’t stop thinking about this morning. But God says, I’ve got this. When you hear that you have 300 men to go into battle against a lot more than that, it’s a stuff most sensible people would say just forfeit. Or surrender or run for your life.

And then what we do in a situation like this. Impossible in every way. Certainly improbable. But something happened to Gideon to make him say what he did in verse 15. You heard about a dream that seemed to indicate Israel would prevail.

And he bowed down and worshiped and they returned to the camp and looked at the first things out of his mouth. First words, get up. He says to his vast troop count of 300. Probably call him by names. I mean, it didn’t take, you know, get up.

The Lord has given the Midianite camp into your hands and he divided the 300 into three companies. So a hundred each company, trumpets and empty jars in the hands of all of them with torches inside. Watch me, he says. There’s boldness in his words now. Follow my lead.

This is the guy that said, not me God. I’m too little. I’m from the tribe of Manasseh and I’m the least important guy in the whole crew. This is the same guy who’s saying, get up. Watch me.

Follow my example. For the Lord and for Gideon, you are to, when the signal comes, you’re to blow those trumpets. There’s no weapons here. You see in that? Blow those trumpets then from all around the camp of the Midianites that we have surrounded.

Blow them and shout for the Lord and for Gideon. And sure enough, 19 Gideon, and the hundred men with him reached the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch just after they had changed guards and they blew their trumpets and broke their jars that were in their hands. So just read commotion, confusion. It’s like a flash grenade that went off in ancient times. The three companies also blew their trumpets, smashed their jars, grasping the torches in their left hands and holding in their right hands the trumpets they were to blow and they shouted, a sword for the Lord and for Gideon.

And while each man held his position around the camp, all the Midianites awoke with a start. They’re in full panic mode crying out as they ran for their lives. And when the 300 trumpets sounded, the Lord caused the men throughout the camp to who are the men he’s talking about? This is not God’s people. The Midianites drew their swords and sliced each other to pieces.

What a moment. And I’m struck by the timeline of this story of Gideon in a big way. Tracing all the way back to the beginning, I could not find a single shred of evidence supporting the notion that Gideon was somehow born brave. None. He was a farmer, we captured that, scratching out a living in a very hard time to live.

And then God said he wanted to do something that was can we call it just God sized? And he sends his angel and he says those words in verse whatever 16 earlier, he says the Lord is with you, mighty warrior. What makes a man or a woman mighty? Is it the courage they have? Or is it they trust the trust they exhibit that says I’m gonna, I’m gonna keep my eyes on him.

I’m gonna walk with a God in a very, very improbable situation to turn out our way. That’s the situation you and I need to think about in our own lives. It does not look good. You don’t need anybody to tell you that, but you can’t make it better by pep talking yourself into well, it’s not that big a day. It’s bigger than big.

Something happened to Gideon and it seems to have changed him. And I don’t think it was just immediate in the moment. I think it was a gradual change that had him beginning to actually believe. God, I’m smart enough to know numbers. They’re not in our favor.

But I believe that you’re bigger. Enough, God, to pull it off anyway. Those words you need to start saying to yourself, I bet it is. I’m with a group of men every week and we pray for a lot of folks that are in really deep water. Gideon believed that God somehow is gonna use a guy like him, the least in the last.

And he believed that God could do a lot with very little. He believed that God doesn’t need great resources to see great things happen. You believe that? I believe that. I believe that that’s the story of the Bible actually.

I think there’s evidence everywhere. He begged me to say David defeated Goliath. How many stones did it take? Well, we can talk all day long, theologians love that. Well, how come he picked up five and only whether you have doubt, get over yourself.

It took one to put that giant down. That’s all that matters. So little David takes on the great menacing Goliath and down he went. Testament, that’s for Samuel 17. Clear in the New Testament, John chapter six.

The chapter opens with Jesus not having enough food to feed his disciples. But God’s got this so much so that he in fact fed with five loads of barley, which the boy volunteered. I would give it up too, that’s barley. And two fish, right? And that’s all it took to feed thousands.

You see, it takes very little meager resources for God to do really amazing things. This is a big idea that I’m trying to circle around this morning. It seems that God’s trying to teach us that truth. That’s something that has always seemed to you or to me to be impossible is perfectly plausible if you’re God. We say God’s not in time like we’re in time and my time’s up now and all that.

But God’s not bound by possible. Jesus said, with man, lots of things are impossible. But with God, that doesn’t exist. Nothing’s impossible. So I want to leave you with words from Jesus.

He said stuff like, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.” John 15. Those are great words. “On the vine, you are the branches. “Every branch that bears fruit “will be pruned so it can bear more fruit.”

“Apart from me, you can do nothing.” That’s the context of Jesus’ words. The Apostle Paul came along and said, “I can do all things, “coma, through him Christ, “who strengthens me.” See how it works together? I know you do.

He said, “And my God shall supply all.” Not some, all of my needs. You say, “Well, they’re big pastor. “They’re really big.” Not for God, they’re not.

And probably a sweeping principle all of us would do better to put in our hearts. In whatever situation that you look at and you’ve been saying to yourself, “I cannot do it. “It’s too big. “Look at the numbers. “God agrees with you.

“You can’t do it. “It is too big.” Then he says this statement in Second Corinthians chapter three, verse five. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy comes from God. God.

To do whatever the impossible is that you face and that I face. And I’m looking in the eyes of people who know family members and friends who need to hear this truth, but give them the gift of sharing it with them this Christmas. Just tell them, I think God’s bigger than what we’re going through. I think impossible, you and I can call it improbable, but don’t call it impossible. Communion is in front of us.

And we’re gonna share that. It represents the ultimate example of God doing something immeasurably great. Can I just say it? Through the frailty of his son. Everybody that’s got a salvation story talks about Jesus.

If you’re talking about anything else, you do not have the gospel, you do not have salvation according to the Bible. Please. And if you’re going, wow, that is a changer in my thinking. Talk to me, let’s not guess about that. Let’s talk about that.

But the truth is, God did something immeasurably way bigger than imaginable by saving anybody, but all were saved through his son. Amen? So if you don’t have his son, you don’t have the life. Okay, which means you gotta change that up today. Now you gotta get, you don’t have to get better.

You don’t gotta improve yourself. You gotta come to Jesus and say, I got a project for you. My life. Amen? I wanna read you these words from Isaiah chapter 53.

Unbelievable description of what God did as a result of his son’s suffering. Coming to this earth born at the right time were told and went to the cross 33 years later. He was despised and rejected these Bible words to describe his glorious son, Jesus. He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and we looked the other way.

He was despised and we didn’t care at all. Yet it was our weakness that he carried. It was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins. But he was pierced for our rebellion.

It’s not too painful, make it personal. He was pierced for your rebellion. He was crushed for your sin and for mine. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.

And all of us, every one of us, like sheep, have gone astray. Each one of us has turned to our own way yet. The Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on his son. There’s no more vivid picture than the baby in a manger, in a cradle before a cross that he would hang from on your behalf. Mind.

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