God's Faithfulness (Gideon)

As we look to our passage, I want to reflect for a moment on the second verse of Amazing Grace. Sadly, people oftentimes skip this one. They go from one to four. Shouldn't do that. The second verse, the lyrics have become sweeter and sweeter. It was grace that taught my heart to fear. grace my fears relieved. T'was grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved. There's a powerful declaration here that's poetically beautiful. But it's also making it clear that there's fear. Fear is a real experience. Fear is a real emotion. And what grace does is it properly aligns fear. It puts fear in proper perspective. We're too often controlled by fears of things in this world, our own insecurities. Those are the kinds of fears that grace relieves. A fear of judgment, a fear of being found out. But grace taught my heart to fear. There's a play on words here because fear is the same word for reverence. a proper perspective of wanting to worship God and glorify Him. God gives me the grace to be free, to be relieved of the kinds of fear that enslave, and it sets me free to worship the one who is worthy. This morning, as you heard, I hope, there's a fellow who seems kind of afraid, but we also see a man of great faith. And this morning, I hope we see that The God of peace, he calls us out of fear. The God of peace, he calls us out of fear by calling us to himself. We're in the book of Judges. If you're new with us, Judges has a clear cycle. The context is that these people that God has delivered from Egypt, well look at that, we heard about that in our chapter. He's brought them into the promised land. They did not obey him when they got there. And so we see this cycle continue. Israel went after the other gods then God would let another nation Oppress them they would eventually cry out. He would send a deliverer or a judge They would save Israel Israel have peace and then they would go after gods again and repeat If you've been with us notice the the stories get thicker and Right, Othniel hardly had any extra details, just a cycle. Then Ehud, we got a little more focus on how the assassination actually happened. Barak and Deborah, there was a lot more discussion on how the salvation was gonna happen. Here with Gideon, we have a lot more information, so much we're gonna break it up into three different sermons. We're including Abimelech with this particular deliverance. So this morning we're looking at the God of peace. He called us out of fear by calling us to himself. And we're gonna have four points. The first one is this. There is distress because of disobedience. There is distress because of disobedience. This is verses one to 10. We see the oppressor named. Midian. We see first of all verse 1, they've done evil again. Israel has returned to that sin. We can only assume and we know from the text. We don't have to assume anything, we know from the text. They've begun worshiping other gods. So Midian is the new nation and peoples that God is going to use to oppress his own people. Now this oppression is different than before. We see here that they're coming and they're plundering their crops and their livestock. So their camels and their tents and their people, they're more numerous than can be numbered. They're like the locusts. There's probably some hyperbole there, but that's how it felt if you're an Israelite. Because every time you planted a crop, every time you started presenting some kind of picture that people are alive and well, they would come down and take everything you've grown and take it for themselves. Now, that has to be viewed in light of what God promised them. God promised them, I'm going to take you into a land, you're going to get grapes from vineyards you did not plant. You're going to a land that's gonna be fruitful and abounding in produce and your livestock will be well. If you come to this land, you're going to live in cities and villages and on farms that you did not create or build, and you will get to receive the abundance. But here, because they've forsaken God, the land is laid waste. The blessing they're promised is not what they're living. And so after years of this oppression, they come to their senses, verse six, they cried out for help to the Lord. The people come and they cry out to help for the Lord. Now, you typically don't have verses seven to 10 in the judge's cycle. You'd expect to jump right down to verse 11, and God sent an angel and he called Gideon, but here in this story we have another element We have more explanation. When the people cry out because they're not living in the blessed state that God has given them, they've been brought low, which is oftentimes a sign of the grace of God, they cry out, and look at verse seven. When the people of Israel cried out to the Lord on account of the Midianites, the Lord sent a prophet, and he said to them, thus says the Lord, The God of Israel. Notice all the actions. I led you up from Egypt. I brought you out from the house of slavery. 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, I am the Lord your God. You should not fear the gods of Ammonites in whose land you shall dwell. But you have not Obeyed my voice. In response to their cry for help, God sends a prophet. And here we praise God for a simple truth. God speaks. God speaks. He lets us know who He is, what He's done for us, and what He expects of us. These are words of grace. While they are very clearly a correction and an explanation, this is why you're living in this oppression. He makes it clear who He is. And let's again, I led you. I brought you. I delivered you. I brought you from the hand of the oppressor. I drove them out. I gave you this land. One of the clearest ways we know God is from His actions. It's all the things God does for us, and then He comes along and doesn't just do these things for us. He talks about them to tell us what He meant in doing those things for us. God is correcting them, and it is to their shame. You have not obeyed my voice. See, these Israelites are the descendants of the Israelites who were brought out of Egypt from the very beginning, who crossed the Red Sea themselves, and who, when they got to Mount Sinai, and Moses is there receiving the instruction from God, and the people of Israel got impatient and fearful, so what do they do? They built a golden calf and gave that golden calf credit for the salvation from Egypt. They did not obey God's voice. It's also very important here, we see the sequence. I delivered you and then I said, do not worship any other gods. God does not say, when you stop worshiping other gods, I'll save you. Salvation comes first, and then the call to obedience. He does not save Israel because they had already come to obedience. He saves Israel so that they would then walk in obedience. I delivered you. I gave you the land. I said to you, I am the Lord your God. Do not fear any of those gods. And they did not listen. Hear the warning or the declaration from Proverbs chapter one that correlates with this kind of warning. Because I have called you and you have refused to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded, because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity, I will mock. when terror strikes you, when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you, then they will call upon me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but will not find me, because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof. Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way and have their fill of their own devices. That is God speaking in perfect justice and righteousness. If we will not heed his word, he will not bless us. He will see our calamity and he will let us go into that calamity that we have run headfirst into. It's amazing, again and again, God does not bless our disobedience. That's one of the key themes we see throughout Judges. But we also see here that it's amazing how we treat God. We don't treat God like any other human authority. Imagine if you go to work and you refuse to listen to your boss, what's your employer going to do? He's going to stop blessing you with a paycheck. Or fire you. What's going to happen if you don't listen to your coach? If you refuse to take those assignments and do the work that he told you, you're going to sit on the bench. Even Santa Claus doesn't bless the naughty kids. But yet, somehow, we think, the almighty righteous God, even if I keep being disobedient, he'll bless me. No one else works like that, and we don't expect anybody else to work like that. But God, we continue to presume upon His grace and ignore His righteousness. I have delivered you, I have spoken to you, I have given you clear command, and yet you do not heed my voice. In His grace, He lets us go low. That is not the end of our story. He does abound in grace. He is merciful. Let's see our next section. That's distress from disobedience. Now we see God, he is going to save them. He makes it very clear what their sin is, what their problem is. And then we see a calling with a promise. Look at verses 11 and 16. This is a calling with a promise. We see the two new characters. That is going to be the focus of the story. Now the angel of the Lord, he comes and he begins to sit under a tree. Now, the angel of the Lord oftentimes in scripture, it speaks as if the Lord. It even appears that sometimes when the angel of the Lord is referenced, it is indeed the Lord himself. When we see the word angel here, we should not picture a halo and wings. The word simply means messenger. And the way this angel speaks, and the way that Gideon responds, it may look like, and it is convincing, that this is not just a messenger from the heavens, but this is God himself, who's come to speak. It's either a representative that has the same authority, and has a great glory, because he's an ambassador of God, or it's God himself. So God has come down and he's going to call his next judge or his next deliverer. This is Gideon. Gideon is found threshing wheat in a wine press. And while that doesn't seem humorous to you, trust me, it's funny. We don't get what the wine press and the wheat threshing is. You have to have the right tool for the right job. When you thresh wheat, the goal is to be where it's windy. You want to go up on top of a mountain so that while you're threshing it, the wheat and the tares and the chaff, they blow away the wind and you're left with grain. You want an open air system for this work. A wine press is a closed area to capture juice. You don't thresh wheat in a wine press. unless you're afraid of the Midianites. Now that's important, that context. This is where we are first introduced to Gideon. And we see the angel, he calls upon Gideon. It's not clear that Gideon even knows he's there until the angel speaks. Verse 12, he says some of the most important and powerful words in all scripture. The Lord is with you. The Lord is with you. If God is with you, who can stand against you? If the Lord is with you, there's nothing impossible. Because He's the great God of all power. So that's one of the great declarations we see in Scripture. Then we see next to it, O mighty man of valor. You who are courageous in battle, hiding away in a winepress. Now at one level there, I wonder if this is ironic. Because there's something about Gideon that makes him the man God chose to use. He isn't the guy who thinks he's already strong enough to beat everybody. He's the one who has fear. He's the one who, we'll see later in Hebrews 11, he's in the hall of faith, he's a model of faith, but yet right here he's fearful. I don't want to dismiss this mighty man of valor because he is going to act with great courage. But here it appears he's a fearful man, and what we're going to see is as God commits himself to Gideon, and as Gideon begins to walk with God, he does indeed become the man of valor God has called him to be. Not in his own strength, but because of God and his calling. So here we are. The angel declares, oh, the Lord is with you, oh mighty man of valor. And Gideon responds, verse 13. Please, my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all the wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian. Gideon responds to this call, this grand, glorious call with a complaint. What do you mean the Lord is with us? Look where we're at. There's no great deeds like our father recounted or as the prophet spoke of in verses eight to 10. If the Lord is with us, why are we in this particular problem? No, the Lord has forsaken us. He's contending with the angel of the Lord. And look how the angel of the Lord responds, verse 14. He doesn't actually in any way engage in any of the complaints. Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Median. Do not I send you. Go. Save Israel, this is that great declaration that the people of Israel cried for help, verse six, the word for Savior, same word. They've asked for help, God is bringing help, they've asked for salvation, God's bringing salvation. Again, he simply says, you go and you save them in this might of yours. Again, I believe there's some ironic twist going that he has the might in and of himself, but it's because it's who's sending him. Do not I send you. Verse 15. Gideon shows some good self-awareness, some self-reflection. And he said to him, please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. We don't know if that's true or not, but the angel doesn't seem to care. And the Lord said to him, I will be with you. And you shall strike the Midianites as one man. We see here this great declaration. It doesn't really matter how much might you have, how weak you are. It doesn't matter. If the Lord says He's going to go with you, He is going to give you victory. If the Lord sends you on a mission, if He commissions you, He's a great blessing. He doesn't give you anything less than Himself. I'm sending you to do what seems impossible. And I am with you to make it happen. Just step back and reflect for a moment. This is a pattern in Scripture. This sounds just like Moses' call in Exodus 3. Moses gave God the same kind of rigmarole. Oh, but I don't know how to speak. I'm so weak. I don't know how to do anything. And God doesn't disagree. He just says, I'm going with you. In the middle of Gideon's complaint, he doesn't disagree. He simply says, I'm going with you. When God commissions his people, he commits himself to be with his people. We see this most of all in Matthew 28. When God says, go and make disciples, He begins that declaration by saying, or ends that declaration, I am with you always. When God commissions us, He commits to be with us Himself. Our next point, our next stage of the story here, verses 17 to 24, we see there's peace from a presence. there is peace from a present. Verses 17 to 24. We know Gideon most of all from the sign of the fleece, but we actually see him continually asking for a sign. So here he wants a sign. Do not depart from me until I bring on a present. He says, I'll stay. The angel says, I'll stay until you return. So Gideon goes and he prepares this meal. And when he comes back, he seems to be in control because he doesn't actually ask what he wants, he decides to make what he chooses to make. And the angel of God, he takes over at this point, verse 20, and he says, go put all the present, put the meal you provided, put it on that rock. And he took the staff, verse 21, the angel of the Lord reached out and the tip of the staff that was in the hand and touched the meat and the unliving cakes, and the fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unliving cakes, and the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. This is an event that's happened before. God consumes the sacrifice. Then we see Gideon have an aha moment. It does not appear that he knew who he was talking to before. Gideon now sees who was saying to him, I am with you. It is the great I am who I am. Alas, O Lord God, he says. Now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face. He recognizes what an incredible event this has been that he's been dialoguing with one of God's own messengers or even maybe God himself it looks like. Alas, I have seen God face to face. Now that declaration is important, because the great prophet Moses requested in Exodus 33, in the high point of this bold prayer, he says to God, let me see your glory. And God says, you cannot see my glory, you can see my high point, you cannot look at me face to face. You see, our sin cannot come in that kind of close perimeter to the Holy God. And so God passes by His hind parts. A reflection of His glory. Here we see that you're not supposed to be able to look God face-to-face. You're not supposed to come into the presence of the Holy One face-to-face. Which is why the Lord answers, and it is the Lord who said, verse 23, peace be to you, do not fear, you shall not die. Here's the key thing we learn about God in this passage, and that is what Gideon will say about him, the Lord is peace, in verse 24. When our sin comes into contact with the holy God, there should be an undoing of ourselves. We should become undone because of our sin and our unrighteousness in light of his glory and his righteousness. But instead of being undone in his sin, God says, peace be with you. This is a great declaration. We need to really focus on what it really means in this passage. Because this is the kind of saying that could easily fit on a Hallmark card, or in a scented candle, and it'd be completely misunderstood as to what it's supposed to say. Gideon is an unclean man because of his sin. He has come into personal contact with God Almighty and should have been consumed just as that meal was that sat on the rock. But instead of being consumed, the peace of God has been declared. He has not received judgment. He has not received the just wrath for his sin. He instead has received peace. God says, I am with you, I am for you. God even says in the God of peace, he says, I declare you righteous. He doesn't say I see you righteous or I know you're righteous, it's a declaration, a foreign righteousness that he gives us. I have set aside your guilt, I will bless you and provide for you. This peace that mesmerizes and makes Gideon rejoice. It's so much more clear for us than it is for Gideon. Gideon heard these words, he saw the angel, he saw the sacrifice, but what we know of God's peace is so much more significant than what Gideon knows here. Let me walk through some of the peace declarations of the New Testament. Jesus says in John 14, 25, these things I have spoken to you while I'm still with you, But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I've said to you. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. He's already telling the apostles, I'm going to send another Helper, another one like me, God Almighty, who's gonna dwell in your hearts to give you peace in your hearts. Or chapter 20 of John. After he's already, he's died, he's risen, and he's appeared to some of the disciples. Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, put your fingers here, and see my hands, and put out your hands, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe. Thomas answered him, my Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed. Jesus comes in the midst of the disciples who are fearful and curious and wondering what has come of the Savior that they're talking about maybe has risen. And he comes and declares, peace be with you. I have conquered sin and death. Or we have an interpretation of what the peace of God is. In Ephesians chapter two. But now in Christ Jesus, you who are once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. for he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in the ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. The hostility that we had between God and us Between us and one another, Christ has brought peace where there was hostility because he died for our sins. There are numerous others. But I want you to show here what Jesus is talking about in John 14, John 20, what Paul's talking about in Ephesians 2. See, Gideon, he has peace because he brought an offering to God, God accepted that offering, and then declared, peace be to you, do not fear, you shall not die. The peace we have is so much more assuring and absolute. This is why. God Himself provided the offering. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ. He provided the perfect offering that was consumed in His own wrath. Jesus Christ, the perfect man, the righteous one, He died in our place, consumed by the wrath of God the Father. being crushed for our iniquity. Now we hear from God, Christ is our peace. He has brought peace. He has brought the perfect sacrifice. We simply respond by faith. This is the peace Christ has purchased for us. No fear of death. No more enslavement to sin. No more being overwhelmed in our insecurities and the things of this world. What's sad if we go back and hear that warning of, but you have not obeyed my voice. How many Christians refuse to repent and actually enjoy and rejoice in the peace of God? It's purchased peace. He's purchased us. It's complete. It's ours. He wants to bless us with the full experience of that peace. But because we remain stubborn in our sin, He will not bless our disobedience. That theme of face-to-face seeing God, that is also throughout the New Testament. John 1, 117. You could not see the God's face in Moses because of the law, but now in Christ and grace, we will see the face of God. Or Matthew 5, 8, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. As Paul tells us in Ephesians, we should pray for our hearts to be enlightened, that we might see the grace of God. We must stop delighting in the things of this world so that we might rejoice in the peace God gives us. Finally, we see that God has heard the people's prayers. He's called a deliverer. That deliverer has received peace, and now he's ready to go on mission. Our last point, contention because of faithfulness. Again, this is a section that is unique to this particular cycle. You would typically see he goes and fights the enemy. But before Gideon can go and fight the enemy, he has to go tear down the idols that are still in his own backyard. Contention because of faithfulness. That night the Lord said to him, 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. Now the Baal, that's normally associated with a male deity of fertility. It's usually an altar. And the Asherah is usually a carved wooden image that represents the female deity of fertility. So you see how the Baal and the Asherah, they're next to each other. Tear down the altar, cut down the wooden carved image. Verse 26, and build an altar to the Lord your God on top of the stronghold there. with stones laid in due order. Then take the second bull and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah that you shall cut down. So tear down the altar, cut down the wood, then use those things to then burn a true sacrifice to the one true God. Verse 27. So Gideon took 10 men of his servants and did as the Lord had told him. Sounds fantastic, right? He's a faithful man. He did what was told to him. But then we have a qualifier. But because he was too afraid of the family, of his own family, and the men of the town to do it by day, he did it by night. As we reflect upon this, I want us to first see, okay, there's an action. Tear down the idols in your own backyard. I believe there's possibly two reasons, and they're probably both true. First, here's a test of faithfulness. Gideon, are you going to lead Israel to save the people from their own idolatry? You have to first take down the idols that are in your own backyard. This is a test of faithfulness before you can go and help the entire nation take care of your own backyard. Secondly, this is probably a call to repentance. Gideon most likely has been an idol worshiper. And so here we see a test of his own faith. It is interesting, every time Gideon tests God, God tests him in response. He goes by night and out of fear. This is important. Again, Hebrews 11, as we read last week, Gideon is presented as a model of faith, someone we should look to to see what faith looks like, but here he looks like a chicken. He's going at night, sneaking around so nobody sees him. level the Bible presents real human characters. Every single one of the heroes, they're flawed. He's a man of partial faith and partial fear, just like Barak in chapter 4. We need to remember something. It's not the quality of our faith that matters, it's the object of our faith. It's not how strong our faith is in whatever it's in. It's that our faith, no matter how weak it is, is in the right source. It's in the right object. I love here how we see Gideon. He's heard, I am with you. And he's going to start growing in faith. He's going to start growing out of fear by being obedient to the call. And so he takes down the idols. Verse 28 when the men of the town rose early in the morning, they saw the idols were tore down They started asking who has done this verse 29 And they come to Joash Bring out your son that he may die for he is broken down the altar of the Baal and cut down the Asher beside of it But Josh said to all who stood among him This is somewhat ironic. He was the one who owned these idols and Will you contend for the God you worship? Will you save God? Now here he's asking this. God has called Gideon to save his people. God is going to save his people in the midst of their idolatry. And here God's people are trying to save the false gods. Whoever contends for him shall be put to death by morning. If he is a God, let him contend for himself. because his altar has been broken down. There's a wonderful test here. If he's a God, he can fight for himself. Yahweh fights for himself. Therefore, Gideon has a name change. We see Gideon go from a man who is fearful in the wine press to a man called by God who recognizes God, receives peace from God, and then begins to fight by faith. Two simple takeaways. First, God is faithful and good to give us his promises and his instructions. As we see in that great declaration from the prophet, whoever that was, in verses seven to 10, it is important that we do not separate his promises from his instructions. And the most important thing we must see that God gives us is himself. God with us. We see here that every time that God promises that He will be with us, that is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ, that name, Emmanuel. The one who will truly save Israel actually did not come to speak to someone who would deliver us, He came Himself to deliver us. Jesus is becoming like us in every way, yet without sin. He died, He rose again, He's at the right hand of the Father, He will come back. If you're a Christian this morning, peace is what you long for because that's what you were created for. And we usually think of peace, or I usually think of peace, and my wrong thinking when I think, you know, if I only had A, B, and C, I would have peace. If I only had these things, or if only these things would happen to me, or if only these people would start working in this way, then I would have peace. If only God would do those things for me, I would have peace. What the Bible tells us is that peace only comes when God gives us Himself and we receive Him as Himself. Peace only comes when we actually look up to God and recognize that the wrestling in our own hearts, the unsettled, the unrest, it comes from our trying to find peace in everything but God. The greatest danger you have is trying to find peace in everything else. Look up to God and cry out. Believe in Jesus Christ, who died to give you peace, salvation from your own sin. Brothers and sisters, peace be to you in the name of Christ, by the blood of Christ. This is a grand truth. Peace has been purchased. Peace was purchased so that we might delight in it. We must listen to God and obey his voice in order to do so. He is faithful to instruct us and promise. Finally, we see how you grow in faith and grow in fear. Gideon is supposed to be a model for us based upon Hebrews 11. I believe what we see here is faith is the practice of trusting God over against our fear. Yes, there's fear, but we see faith. We have to ask ourselves, what kinds of fears, what kinds of insecurities keep us from being obedient to God? What kind of fear keeps me from experiencing the faithfulness of God? What kind of fear keeps us from trusting fully in what God would say? Really need to ask, what do we fear the most? Because there are certain things Christians should all fear. Here's some of them. We should have a constant fear of bringing shame on the name of Christ. We should be recognizing the kinds of sins that reside in our hearts and our minds and our lips and our actions, and that that sin might bring shame. On the name of Christ, that is a healthy fear. We should have a fear of not hearing, well done, good and faithful servant. We should have a fear of wasting our lives. of not being faithful to the commands of God in a way that when we see Him, we will not hear. Well done. That's a healthy fear. We should have a fear of not being obedient and missing the blessing of Christ. We should all be afraid. What kind of blessings are we keeping ourselves from because we're going to stubbornly stay in our sins? I'm concerned that we too often allow our fears to lead us to unfaithfulness rather than trusting God's faithfulness to overcome our fear. The way to overcome fear is by pursuing the peace of God. That is what God gave Gideon to overcome his fear to be a man of faith and become that man of valor God had called him to be. It's recognizing that God has given us himself to be our peace. Will you pray with me? Father, we praise you and we thank you that you have not left us alone in our sin, but you have come down, you have given us yourself. Lord, we thank you that we can know that you are with us, you are for us. Jesus Christ has not just come down to walk among us, but your Holy Spirit now indwells us to empower us. Lord, we pray that we would know your peace that you have given us because you are such a merciful God. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.