Gideon and the Struggle to Believe: Judges 6

Many believers wrestle with spiritual insecurity. We compare ourselves to others, doubt our usefulness, and wonder whether God could really use someone like us. In Judges 6, Gideon asks many of the same questions: Why is this happening to me? How can I do this? Are You really calling me?

Through Gideon’s story, we see that God isn’t looking for perfect people. He calls ordinary, imperfect people to trust Him, walk in obedience, and find their confidence in Christ rather than themselves. Discover how God meets us in our circumstances, strengthens us through trials, and reminds us that our confidence comes from His presence, not our abilities.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, how are you guys doing? Good, good to see you. All right, as we get started, uh, I'm not Charlie. I think he's at the airport, I think, uh heading this way, and so that's cool. Uh so I get to teach. And honestly, this is the most fun uh thing that we teach in our church that I know of. Uh the vibe is just different. It's fun, it's relaxed. Uh, you guys are a good audience, which is good. You guys are usually nice. You usually. Larry. I'm just kidding. Uh no, Larry's really nice. He comes to a lot of my classes. Uh and so let's start by doing this. We're gonna be in Judges 6 today, and so we're just walking through Judges. Last week, Tyler did Judges 5, and I think it was just a big song, and so he taught that. Uh, Judges 6. But before we do, I want you to turn to somebody next to you, just at your table, take just a second. Uh have you ever had a spiritual hero? Like a spiritual person that you really looked up to who really like maybe invested in you, or you just thought like the Lord used them so mightily? Like, do you have a spiritual hero? Turn to somebody and tell them who it is, ready, go. Let's come back together. Would anybody care to share with us who they said? Who did you pick and why was it Paul Tangway? Just kidding. Does anybody want to say, just one person that it was for them?

unknown 1:18

Yeah, Frank McPherson.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Frank McPherson. He was a part of our church. I didn't get to know him. Paul Box, I've heard a lot about. Absolutely. He's at your table. Yeah. You know, there's there's a lot of people that would say that. Well, I think it's cool that a lot of you named people that uh are here, people that you know, not necessarily uh famous Christians or people you've seen on TV. Uh some of them are, and that's an incredible thing, but a lot of them are just normal people that you know. And so for me, uh, there's been a ton of people invest in my life. One of them is a guy who goes to church here. His name is Mike Barnett. Uh he was a BCM director, Baptist Collegiate Ministry. It's called Baptist Student Union when he started, and he was at the OU Health Science Center for, I don't know, 40 years. Like his only job out of college, like he graduated college, he started with BCM, he retired like two years ago, and I went and spoke at his retirement. And so for all that time, he never had a huge ministry. He never was like the guy that, you know, named North American Mission Board comes in and goes, hey, we're gonna take his strategy and we're gonna use it all across the country. He was never that guy. He was the guy that got up every morning and helped people follow Jesus. And there's just people all over the country who, uh a lot of doctors around the country who are part of his ministry. And so it's just a really cool thing. And sometimes I think when we look at these spiritual heroes of ours, sometimes uh they can be so other or so like so disciplined. Uh there's a guy that just passed away named Max Barnett, who did college ministry for decades and decades. And uh when I met him in probably 2001, he looked exactly like what he looked like when he passed the last last month. Uh just looked the exact same for a hundred years. And he did the exact same thing forever, which was he just made disciples with his life and he memorized scripture and taught the Bible. And so sometimes you look at people like that and you get crushed. Because you walk away and you go, I could never do that. Like I they quoted so much of the Bible, my memory's not that good. Like, I couldn't do that. Like, they've been so faithful for so long, like I know what I've done. I've made so many mistakes, like I'm never gonna be that guy. And we get a little bit spiritually insecure. And so, like, here's some questions. So, do you ever struggle with spiritual insecurity? And so, some ways maybe you could tell is maybe you have a performance-based mentality. Like, you act as though God is a boss or a critic rather than a loving father. And so we're kind of performance-based. You're like, well, if I don't, if I don't volunteer for this, God's not gonna love me anymore. And so you get kind of insecure because you're like, I gotta keep it up. Or maybe uh you just struggle with comparison. Have you ever heard that comparison is the thief of joy? I think it is, and I think social media makes it so much worse. You see what everybody's got and what they're doing, you compare yourself. And it can even be like in our Christian walk, you go, oh, they they posted a Bible verse this week. I didn't do that. And you compare yourself, or you know, they made it to church and I wasn't able to go. Like I had a doctor's appointment or I wasn't feeling well, I didn't get to go. And you start thinking, well, maybe they're a better Christian than I am. You get kind of spiritually insecure. Or maybe you just kind of feel like you're gonna be found out. Like everyone thinks I'm a really good Christian, but I know who I am deep in. And like if they ever found out who I really am, like, so I better not get close to people. So maybe you don't ever really let people in because you're like, you know what, they're gonna find out that I'm not the Christian they think I am. And so you get kind of spiritually insecure. Or maybe, excuse me, maybe you can't rest. Maybe rest is something you struggle with because you're like, if I don't stay busy, then God's not gonna keep loving me. And maybe that goes all the way back to like how your dad treated or how your mom treated you, or the culture you grew up in. And you just go, you know what, if I'm not constantly busy, then I'm not doing what's right. So you can't rest. And maybe that's actually spiritual insecurity. Maybe we doubt that God really uh, that his grace really is enough. Like it's not like I'm too big for that. Like somehow I've sinned more than he's willing to forgive. And we get spiritually insecure. But here's the thing is I was reading Judges 6 this week. I was reading about Gideon, and I started reading the context all around, and I just thought, God will use anybody. You start reading these Old Testament fellas, and you go, I don't know if he's a good guy or a bad guy. Like he did so many things, and so God will use people to do these great things. Why? Because God chose to do it, he called someone to do it. That person then had to do it in humility, but so often that person does it, and then he turns around and does something wild. Somebody like sells their, gives their wife like into prostitution or like to be abused to protect themselves. It's like that's a hero of the faith that did that. Where they, as soon as they do something that's just huge faith, they turn around and they go, hey, give me one earring from everyone you plundered. Give me one of those earrings. I'm gonna boil that down and I'm gonna make a new idol and we're gonna worship that. When they just fought against idols. And you're like, What in the world? A couple things I think why. One, I don't think they necessarily had the Holy Spirit in the way that we do. When Jesus left, he said, It's good that I'm going because I'm gonna send the helper. And so we have a helper that dwells within us. In the Old Testament, the Spirit of God would kind of come and land on people at specific times. And so I think that changes kind of things because uh, you know, if Charlie went and did built an altar, we'd be like, that guy's insane. But back then it seemed to be kind of common in these stories we're hearing. And so I would say uh that we don't need spiritual insecurity because God will use anybody. You don't have to be perfect, you just have to be uh submitting to Him to do it. Um spiritual insecurity really will get in the way. Do you know what insecurity is? It's when you walk into a room and you go, they're better than me. Pride is when you walk into a room and you go, I'm better than you. They're both comparative, right? They're comparative. It's me versus you. So you walk into a room, and maybe if you're new to church or like if you're not an insider, you walk into a room like this and you think, Did I dress nice enough? Do I have the right spiritual pedigree? Like, can I talk out loud when he asks a discussion question? Can I talk out loud? Or am I like not a good enough Christian yet to do that? And so it's comparative, and you think maybe I'm not ready for that. Pride would come in and go, I'm better than these folks. I look better than him, I look better than her, I got more money than them. And that's sin. You know what confidence is? Confidence is I know who I am in Christ and I'm okay with it. You have an identity in Christ and you're okay with it. It gets you out of the rat race. So you're not even in the competition, you're not being comparative. So you walk in and you don't compare yourself to anybody because you go, you know what? I'm a sinner saved by grace, and if God calls me to do something, I'll do it, and he knows my past and he saved me anyway. So this is just this is my family now. So I don't have to feel insecure. I know who I am in Christ. And so today we're gonna look at Gideon uh chapter six, and so it starts uh with uh a really telling verse, and it's gonna end with the fleece incident, and then we're gonna stop there. We're not gonna go any further because that's chapter six. And so let's jump into today's lesson. So uh we're gonna look at it using some C words, because they alliterate. And so uh we're gonna take it chunk by chunk because it's a lot of reading, and I think if I read it all at once, you guys would get bored and probably start looking at your phones. So we're gonna do it chunk by chunk and we'll jump in. So, number one, uh, this is circumstances. Circumstances. Gideon is going, why is this happening to me? So, what are the circumstances? This is in verses one through thirteen. It says, The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord handed them over to Midian seven years, and they oppressed Israel. Because of Midian, the Israelites made hiding places for themselves in the mountains, caves, and strongholds. Whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midianites, the Malachites, and the people of the east came and attacked them. They encamped against them and destroyed the produce of the land, even as far as Gaza. They left nothing for Israel to eat, as well as no sheep, ox, or donkey. For the Midianites came with their cattle and their tents like a great swarm of locusts. They and their camels were without number, and they entered the land to lay waste to it. So Israel became poverty stricken because of Midian, and the Israelites cried out to the Lord. When the Israelites cried out to him because of Midian, the Lord sent a prophet to them. He said to them, This is what the Lord God of Israel says: I brought you out of Egypt and out of the place of slavery, I rescued you from the power of Egypt and the power of all who oppressed you. I drove them out before you and gave you their land. I said to you, I am the Lord your God, do not fear the gods of the Amorites, whose land you live in, but you did not obey me. The angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak and was in Orphrah, which belonged to Joash, the Abazrite, Abbezrite? It's the best I can do. His son Gideon was threshing wheat in the wine press in order to hide it from the Midianites. Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, The Lord is with you, valiant warrior. Gideon said to him, Please, my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened? And where are all the wonders that our ancestors told us about? They said, Hasn't the Lord brought us out of Egypt? But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to Midian. And so his question is, Why is this happening to me? And maybe you've asked that question about yourself, right? You find yourself in a difficult situation, things aren't going very well, and you go, Why is this happening to me? I remember one time I had a student, he was loosely a part of my ministry, would kind of come and go, always kind of in and out. His dad was a pastor, and so he kind of like had this idea that he was a spiritual person, but he was just always making the exact wrong decision. So uh maybe it was cheating on his girlfriend, maybe it was sleeping around, maybe it was getting into alcohol and drugs or whatever it might be. Like he just always was doing the exact wrong thing. I remember one time he looked at me because some things were going wrong in his life, and this is what he said. Why is this happening to me? I said, brother, nothing's happening to you, you're doing this. These are just effects to the things that you're doing. Every effect has a cause, and so there's consequences to our actions. And so if you sleep around, there's a good chance you're gonna have babies. It's just how science works. So he's like, this isn't happening to you, you're doing this. And so, whenever uh Gideon says, God, why are these people oppressing us? What is happening? What's the answer? We can look at verse one. The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord handed them over to Midian for seven years. And so they were doing what was evil, and every action has a consequence. And so uh this passage tells them, do not fear their gods. And I think what he's saying is, do not worship their gods. Fear the Lord your God only. And so they started worshiping other gods, and then he's saying, Well, why isn't everything just coming up roses for us? Uh and he's like, Well, it's because you don't worship me, you're not following my commands. And here's the truth about the Bible it's God's word, which means that it corresponds to reality. It's truth. It's not like it's truth, it corresponds to reality. The way that God set up this whole operating system of the world, he set it up, and then he gave us a book to say, here's how to live in it. And so it stands to reason that if we live the way that God prescribed, then things are gonna go better than if we don't. Right? He made the whole thing. And so if we live the way he tells us to, it just makes sense. And then Gideon and them were living in a way that wasn't according to the scriptures. They weren't following the one true God. They're like, well, why isn't why aren't things going like they're supposed to do? It's like trying to build a piece of furniture from a box, like a flat pack box, you know, from like IKEA, and the box comes, and you're like, I don't need the instructions. You start trying to put it together, and then you end and you have like seven screws left and like a couple extra wrenches you didn't even start with, and you're like, what is happening? And then you lean on it and it crashes. You're like, why didn't this work? Well, you didn't read the instructions. You tried to do it in your own mind and power, like you just made it up as you went, and then it didn't go well? That makes sense. It probably shouldn't go well. And so, uh things, why is this happening to Gideon's people? Because they did what was evil. And so the question is, uh, are we punished in the same way? On the other side of the cross, is it the same? If we turn from Jesus, are we just gonna be punished? What does that look like? Are we disciplined? Are we punished? Uh if you sin today, can you expect God to hit you with a lightning bolt tomorrow? Or like if you sin today, is God gonna strike your car dead tomorrow? And you're like, well, battery died. I must not be living right. You ever heard that? People, if someone something good happens, like on the golf course, if someone hits a tree and it bounces into the fairway, they go, someone's living right. Are we rewarded in that way? I don't think God's keeping uh some sort of cosmic balance with like check marks and demerits, where he's like, Gold star, uh your car's not gonna break down this week. Uh you sin. So I don't think that's how it works. I think we live in a cursed world and things break. People are broken, relationships are hard. So, what does this look like for us on this side of the cross if you know Jesus? So, number one, uh, Romans 8:1. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So if you know Jesus eternally, you were stationed as a child of God, and that is not going to change. He forgave you of every sin you've ever committed or going to or are going to commit if you came to faith in Jesus. Why? Because he died for all sin and then he made you a new creation. You went from being dead to alive, uh, from an old creation to literally being spiritually reborn in the Holy Spirit dwelling in you. And so now there's no condemnation. One time uh we were in Canada doing a vision trip. It was me and a bunch of BCM directors. And at this we preached and visited a lot of church plants. We're in Edmonton, if you guys know Edmonton. Similar to Oklahoma, like they're an oil-based industry town, pretty big city, really international. Uh it was February, and I think they said it's like one of the most northern uh major cities in North America. It's really far north. It was negative six every day. The whole time we were there. I mean, it was freezing. It was so cold that like your genes would start to freeze. And we were just going like church plants, church plant, trying to visit people, make connections so we could take students back in the future. And we were gonna preach several times one Sunday. And so me and my buddy Chad, whose wife is Rachel, who does our children's ministry here, uh, we've been friends forever, worked together for a really long time. And we're on that trip together. And we know that in the evening, one of us is gonna have to preach at a Congolese church. So, like people from the Congo. And uh I've done a lot of mission trips. I know that international churches are different, and I was like, I don't want to do it. So I told Chad, I said, if you'll preach at that one, I'll preach twice in the morning. So I preached at two different churches in the morning, he preached that one. That night we go to the Congolese church, and it's gonna be interpreted. And first off, like, it is the most energy I've ever seen in a room, ever. I mean, they are just dancing, going wild. The worship is just so energetic. At one point, I mean, there's a ton of people on stage, just all getting it, singing. There's the guy playing drums and a guy singing over here. Mid-song without skipping a beat, the guy singing transferred into the drum set, and the guy from the drums took the microphone and just started singing. They switched instruments mid-song, like just during the verse. And it was insane. And it was just so much energy. And that's the kind, like I'm a pretty low energy guy. Like my wife finds that out about me. She's like, I just had to realize you have as much energy as you have. I get home, I'm exhausted, I need some time just to sit by myself. Like, I'm not, like you rarely hear me like raise my voice. Like when I hear myself, like if I watched myself preach on video, I would go, man, that's boring. It's just all kind of right here. That's just who I am. That's how I was built. This church is not that way. So, in that environment, if if I if I have lunch with somebody who's really, really energetic, I tend to just clam up. I get even quieter because I can't match that. And so I end up just kind of like shrinking. And so this is a church where it's like going at it. And so Chad preaches and he gets a little nervous. And we all would have. I mean, he was taking one for the team. This was a tough room to preach in. And because you would preach and then they would interpret. You'd preach, interpret. So, you know, one sentence, one sentence, one sentence, one sentence, and it gets tough. And he ends up, he's preaching this verse. There's therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. And he kind of just ends up saying that over and over. He's just like, now there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ. And he's like, they would translate it, and then he'd be like, and so now we know there's no, he just kind of like he got nervous, and he said it over and over. And it ends, and I'm just thankful that I'm not the one up there, because that's a lot of pressure. And the pastor gets up, he goes over to Chad, and he says, Brother, thank you for that message. We already knew it, but thank you for the reminder. And I was just dying laughing because I wasn't up there. And so he was he was taking it. And so, but here's the truth we know that, but we forget it all the time, and we do need to be reminded. Don't we need to be reminded there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ? Because if we're not careful, if we go through a season where we're really struggling, we might start to think, well, man, well, maybe God's not real, or maybe I didn't mean it when I prayed all those years ago, or when I was baptized. Maybe I didn't really mean it. And you start to doubt your salvation, or you start to doubt that God could use you again because you just kind of struggled. But if you know Jesus, if you've repented of your sin, if you've cried out to him, confessed with your mouth, and believed in your heart, you become a new creation, then there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ. You're eternally seated with him. And so we know that, and we need to be reminded, and we need to preach that to ourselves. The other thing is that we are disciplined. God does discipline us. And so Hebrews 12, 7 through 1, I mean, 7, 1 through 11 says this: endure suffering as discipline. God is dealing with you as sons, for what son is there that a father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, which all received, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had human fathers discipline us, and we respected them. Shouldn't we submit even more to the father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them, but he does it for our benefit, so that we can share his holiness. And so God does discipline us when we start to live outside of his will. And so that's not eternal. We will never be sent to hell. But on this earth, God starts to shape us and to move us into the direction that he wants us to go because he loves us as his own children. If us as parents didn't discipline our kids, what would happen? Some of you have seen it. Some of you might have to raise that kid because someone else didn't discipline them. And things went south. Man, there's chaos, there's disorder. And no kid who doesn't get disciplined thinks, man, they must really love me. They let me do whatever I want. It'd be chaos. But God disciplines us because he loves us. And then there's also trials. We also go through trials in life. And so sometimes we go through a trial, something's really hard. And if we're not careful, we'll think, well, God's just mad at me. I don't think that's the case most of the time. So what is a trial? So James tells us this it says, Consider it great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, knowing uh, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its full effect so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing. And so when James is talking about trials, I think he's asking the question, uh, will you do what's right even when it's hard? Because the book of James starts this way. He says, to the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad. And so he's talking to the twelve tribes, and they are dispersed. Why? Because they've been persecuted. Someone came into Jerusalem, they took over, they punished them, they killed them, they had to scatter, they had to leave their families, they had to leave their jobs, their homeland, everything. So if you can imagine someone coming into Moor and just running us out of town, that would be pretty hard. You'd go, well, now I gotta find new food. And well, am I I lost my job. Am I gonna steal to eat? Will I hurt somebody else to get the things that I need? Will I, oh, will I just completely abandon God because now things are hard? Like you have to make a lot of decisions. And so sometimes in life we go through things that are hard. Maybe relationship issues, maybe we lose a loved one, maybe relationships with family members are strained. Uh maybe you lose a job, maybe uh you got to get a new hip and things are just really hard and you start to get sad. And so I think what he's asking is, even when times are hard, will you still do what's right? Will you still follow Jesus? I think that's a trial. And why do we do it? Why should we in the why in the world should we consider it joy when we encounter various trials? Because he says, when you encounter various trials, uh, when you because you know that the testing of your faith, I have it memorized in a different version, and Charlie uses CSB, and so I'm switching to CSB, and so I get them mixed up. Uh because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its full effect, so you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing. And so we're being matured and completed as we walk through trials. And so we know this that as things are hard and you stand through it, you grow and you get better. I remember watching like a fight science TV show once. I used to really be into like UFC. You guys, anybody in here watch UFC Ultimate Fighting Championship? A couple of you? That's about how many hands I expected. I didn't expect a lot. When I was in college, I was pretty interested. I grew up wrestling, a lot of wrestlers. There is no real professional wrestling, so they go into MMA and they fight. And so a lot of the wrestlers I watch, they become fighters. And there was a time when I was like, I want to fight somebody. And it was just because I'm like, I want to see if I could do it. Like, what do I got? What do I got in the tank? Those days are gone. I do not want to fight anybody. But here's what they're talking about. One of like the first dudes. He had a mohawk, he had like a beer belly. Uh, he looked wild. His nickname was The Iceman. And so he uh, you would watch some things about some fighters, and they were they dialed in their life so tight. Like one guy was like, I only eat baby food because it's the purest nutrition. Dude literally was eating baby food and just meat, and he was ripped. Later, he got kicked out for steroids, so it wasn't just baby food. But uh most people have their like lives dialed in, like, I want to be a champion, someone trained like a champion. Chuck Liddell, uh, the video about him, he would just go eat fried food, greasy food, did not care. I don't think he did cardio, because his whole deal was I'm gonna throw punches and knock you out fast. And he would, he would knock guys out with like one punch. I mean, it was crazy that how he could get power and knock people out. Um, and then he had a mohawk and it was wild. But here's what they said about him. Uh when you punch something, you get like a microscopic fracture in your bone. And then it kind of fills in with calcium, and then he would punch some other stuff, and it would, these little bitty fractures, and they would just start to get denser and denser and denser and denser. And so the show was saying that essentially, after years of training of just getting little bitty cracks and them healing with calcium and just filling in, they would get denser and denser and denser until finally it was like getting punched in the face with a piece of steel. I could put steel in your bones. And how did it happen? Little bitty cracks being healed for a really long time. And Chuck Liddell knew because they don't wear boxing gloves, they were really thin ones. And he would just knock people out because he had fists of steel. And sometimes when we go through trials, what's happening is these little bitty cracks are happening in us. Like, man, that relationship's really hard and it hurts, and I don't know what to do, but I'm gonna follow Jesus anyway. And then you get a little bit stronger, and then you lose your job, and you're like, I don't know how I'm gonna provide for my family, but I know this. I'm not the provider for my family, Jesus is, so I'm gonna lean on him. And you get that little crack, and then he starts to feel it. And then you go on further and you get diagnosed with something that's horrible. Like, I don't know if I can do it. And you get a little crack, and maybe Jesus feels it, and you get a little bit stronger, and before you know it, you've got steel in your bones. And now you're especially, specifically, uniquely qualified to help somebody else walk through that same thing. Because as you look around this room, if we took a poll and said, hey, what do you, what have you been through in your life? I bet our list would look really similar. The conditions might start with a different letter, but everybody's got something. The relationships may look a little different, but they're all struggling. Why? Because we live in a broken world, it's under the curse. But every time we get that little crack and Jesus fills it back in, we get a little stronger, a little more steel in our bones. So that's what trials do. And so we don't look at the trials in our life and go, God, why me? We look at it and go, you know what? I'm gonna choose to follow Jesus today because I know this world's broken, but if I keep following him, he's gonna put steel in my bones and I'm gonna keep walking because there's no condemnation for those who are who are in Christ. And if it's because of sin I've committed that I'm just reaping some consequences, then I'm gonna repent. I'm gonna say, God, I'm sorry. I'm gonna apologize to whoever I hurt, and I'm gonna keep following Jesus because I know that following him is the best way to live. And so why is this happening to me? It could be a lot of things, but the answer to all of it is just keep walking towards Jesus. Keep walking towards Jesus. All right, number two, competence. The first one was uh circumstances, this is competence. How can I do this? I'm a nobody. I think that's what Gideon's saying. How can I do this? I'm a nobody. And so this is 14 through 16. It says, the Lord turned to him and said, Go in the strength you have and deliver Israel from the grasp of Midian. I'm sending you. He said to him, Please, Lord, how can I deliver Israel? Look, my family is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father's family, but I will be with you, the Lord said to him. You will strike down Midian, you will strike Midian down as if it were one man. And so, how can I do this? I'm a nobody. This is competence. Do you guys ever struggle with that? Anybody ever ask you to lead a life group and you just kind of shake at your core and you go, I can't do that. I can't teach. That's the number one thing when we're looking for life group leaders. We ask people and they go, I don't think I can teach. And they're usually it's insecurity. Usually it's like, you know, there's people in that room who know more than me. It's like, well, there's people who know more than me in every room I've ever been in. You just do what God calls you to do. Why? Because He's with you. He's with you. And so, excuse me. Um, that's what he says. I will be with you. I think that one of the absolute greatest gifts in life is a buddy. It's a buddy. Going through life alone isn't the way God called us to do. It's not how he created us. He saw Adam was alone. He said, It's not good. So he made a helper suitable and he created Eve, and so he had a wife. And Paul says it's okay to be single, that it's actually good, that you can go and serve even more. And so uh we want to have spouses, but we also just need buddies, we need friends to go through life. Uh, you it's probably been a while since you've done this, but you ever spend the night in a new house by yourself? Every noise is a murderer. It's actually just the ice machine. But you're like, I'm pretty sure someone just broke in and I gotta find a gun. But what happens if you're in a new house and you're with somebody? There's somebody else there with you. You have a friend sleeping in the other room, or uh your son sleeping on the couch, or you have a spouse laying in bed with you. What happens? You hear that and you go, that's just the icemaker. Having a buddy really changes perspective, it gives you confidence, it changes the way we do life. Like, so much in life is so much easier with a friend. And here's what I've noticed with men and women, there are differences in how we handle friendships. There's differences, and even in this room, uh as we get older, as maybe people become widows and widowers, uh, we handle things in different ways. And so what I've noticed is that the women seem to be a whole lot better at making friends. I don't know what it is, but y'all go play cards together and you go to movies and you hang out a lot. And maybe it's that you don't want to be alone. I don't know what it is, but you guys seem to be really good at making friends, and I think that's such a beautiful thing. Now, guys, it's a little different. I think we should try harder, but a lot of us will go play golf. And so there's some dudes in here that I play golf with, and it's maybe my favorite thing in the world. Like, I just love it. And so here's what I think. So girls, uh, women tend to make friendships like face-to-face. It's like intimate. Like you could sit down, ladies could sit down by each other, touching knees and be okay. And just talking. Hey, what are you going through? What are you feeling? What's life like? What's your relationships like? If you did that to guys, they would hate it.

unknown 32:39

They wouldn't do it.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

Wouldn't do it. So, girls, women, seems to be, and this is this is based on no research, Rita. I have no research on this. I'm making this up. This is pure observation. Women go face to face, and that's and they're comfortable with it. Men are shoulder to shoulder. If we can do an activity while we're talking, changes everything. Because we'll talk when we go play golf, we talk about everything. We talk about our life, we talk about parenting, we talk about relationships, all the things that I would never call up Charlie and go, hey man, let's talk about relationships. Never done it in my life. But we'll sit in a golf cart next to each other and we'll talk about everything. And so, men, here's what I want to say. Uh, if you find yourself being lonely, wishing you had more company, do it. Make it happen. Call somebody, text somebody. Just do it. Uh, it's worth it. But don't say you want to get coffee. That's usually not the best for dudes. Go play golf, go for a walk, uh, whatever it is that works for you, but shoulder to shoulder, not face to face. I think that would help. Life is better with a buddy. I think that is absolutely true. Um, community is super and super, super important. The other thing is that when it comes to having a buddy, we have the Holy Spirit. Jesus left, he sent the Holy Spirit. Even when you're alone, you're not alone. The Spirit of the living God is within you. And so He can walk with you and to help you accomplish things that God calls you to do, whatever that is. Uh, let's go on. So, next we have certainty. Certainty. This is 17 through 22. Are you really calling me? Then he said to him, If I have found favor with you, give me a sign that you are speaking to me. Please do not leave this place until I return to you. Let me bring my gift and set it before you. And he said, I will stay here until you return. So Gideon went and prepared a young goat and unleavened bread from a half bushel of flour. He placed the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot. He brought them out and offered them to him under the oak. The angel of God said to him, Take the meat with the unleavened bread, put it on the stone, and pour the broth on it. So he did that. The angel of the Lord extended the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread. Fire came up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. Then the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. When Gideon realized that he was the angel of the Lord, he said, Oh no, Lord God, I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face. And so he's told to do something. God says, I'm going to be with you. And he's like, Are you sure? He wants certainty. He's like, Well, tell me one more time. And so maybe you have like a kid like that, like our daughter Ellie. She like loves certainty. And so, like, if we have like an event the next day, she'll be knocking on our door at night and be like, hey, what time are we leaving? What are we doing? Is it a swim party? What are we doing? And so she just loves that certainty. And some people need it more than others. Me, I don't usually care. I'm like, it'll work out. We're gonna get there, it'll be fine. Uh, but he wants certainty that God's called him to this. And then later in the passage, he asks for certainty again, that whole fleece situation. Um, but we'll get to that later. And so most of the time in life when God's leading us, we don't get a meal being consumed by fire on a rock. We just don't. When I was young, uh, I started following the Lord as a sophomore in college, in high school, and pretty immediately I wanted to do ministry. I didn't grow up in church. We had gone like two Sundays in a row when I was a kid, and they gave me a Gideon Bible, and they said to read Matthew 7, like Sermon on the Mount. And I remember I read it, and I just go, that's where that's from? Because I had heard some of these like stories just in culture, you know, on TV, whatever. And I was like, oh, that was Jesus? That's pretty cool. And then we didn't go back. Sophomore in high school, my brother goes to uh Falls Creek because he wants to get away from some guys he's working with. He's tired of them, so he goes to Falls Creek and then they sign up and go too. But he goes to church camp and he's like, This is pretty good. And so he invites me to church, and I go to church and uh come to faith, start following Jesus, and pretty immediately I'm like, I'm interested in this. This seems true and this seems good. And as I'm driving my truck to school uh there in Tuttle, the things that I was like, in my mind, you know, the conversations you have, in my mind, I was always working through scripture and like explaining it in my mind. And I was a new Christian, I thought that's probably normal. That's probably what Christians do. It's not. And so I think the Lord was building me for ministry, like to do ministry, to teach the Bible, the thing that I love. Excuse me. And so I wanted to be called to ministry. I just wanted to do it. I thought it was great. But all the stories I heard at youth camp were like people going, you know, the Lord called me to ministry, and I ran from it. I didn't want to do it. So the Lord put me in a car wreck and broke my neck. And I'm like, what? And so in my mind, like literally, that's a real story I heard. And I was like, so I guess if I want to do ministry, then it's just me. Like it's being like fleshly or something. I was really overthinking it. Like, like God putting you in ministry, like like someone would want to do that for a bad reason. Like you don't get paid, it's whatever. So I hear a beep. I think it's probably fine. Is it you, Christian? Okay, sounds good. Uh it's not an alarm. So uh I want to be called to ministry, I don't know if I am, and so I decide I want certainty and I'm gonna fast. And so we're at a retreat with our church, like a youth retreat on spring break, and I'm like, I'm gonna fast. I don't know a thing about fasting, and I still don't, to be honest. It's not really a part of our culture. We're about to eat. Our church culture is the opposite of fasting. And so I'm gonna fast because I'm like, God, I want to know if I'm called to ministry. And I make it to lunch. And guys, there's a lot of days I don't eat breakfast. Like a lot of days, and it's fine. But that day I was like, I'm starving. I made it to lunch and I ate two sandwiches. And I never eat two sandwiches. It was just stupid. Like, I just couldn't do it. Long story short, one day I'm talking to my youth pastor and about being called, and he's like, if you want to do it, like why would the devil be trying to trick you into that? This is a good thing. And so calling really isn't as much about like getting worked up at a Christian concert and walking down to the front. I knew a ton of guys in high school that did that. None of them are in ministry. It was a one-time event. And they're like, this is God calling me. And then the rest of their life they have a little bit of guilt sitting on their shoulders because they're like, you know, God called me to ministry back then, I never did it. Like, he probably weren't called. It was a one-time thing. Hans Dilbeck, who was the pastor at Quell Springs for a long time, then he led Oklahoma Baptist, now he leads Guidestone, which is like our retirement stuff. And I mean, just an incredible preacher. Uh, when he talks about calling, he says a couple things. One is he says, Do you want to do it? Like when you're following Jesus, is it something you want to do? Two, he says, uh, are you gifted at it? Does it seem like that's what God built you to do? Because it'd be pretty rare that God would say, Hey, I need you to uh be a preacher, but like you're gonna be super, super bad at it. He's gonna, he's gonna get if he's gonna call you to something, he's gonna equip you for that thing. And you may not be the world's best, but he's gonna he's gonna use you. Uh has anybody else seen it in you? People who know you and love you and love Jesus, do they see it? Do they go, hey, this makes sense for you? And so I think calling sometimes uh isn't as mystical as we want it to be, but a little bit more like when you add up everything about your life when you're following Jesus, does this is this what he wants? And so finally I was just like, you know what, I think God's calling me to ministry. I want to do it. Like people have said, hey, it seems like you should do ministry, it's what I want to do. And so I just went down front to the church and said, Hey, I'm I surrendered to ministry. And they're like, Cool, makes sense. And that's kind of how calling works a lot of times. And so when someone, maybe you've been called to something at our church or uh in different areas of life, and you've just felt a little insecure about it. Like, ah, I'm not really from the right family, or you don't really know all the things I've done, or you know, I don't, I'm not smart enough, I don't have a memory like that guy. It's not really about that. Is God calling you to do it? Is it something you want to do? Is it do other people see that gifting in you? Do people affirm it? Um Does it make sense in your life? And don't let insecurity keep you from following Jesus. Because as you read the Old Testament, I mean that's my big takeaway this week as we end, is that God will use anybody. I mean, these people were not superhumans, they're people who made mistakes, and so maybe you've made mistakes. The important thing is that you just follow Jesus. I had a boss who used to say it like this, he'd say, When you mess up, confess up, get up, and move on with Christ. I think there's some truth to that. We've all messed up. So confess to Jesus, get up, and start following Jesus again. God can use you and he wants to use you for all kinds of things in our church, in our community. And so uh don't let insecurity keep you from doing God's will for your life. There's a lot of good years ahead of y'all. And so I hope that you jump in and serve. Let's pray. And then I think Raymond's gonna do announcements, and we got food today, so uh let's pray. Jesus, you really are a good God, and you love us, and we mess up a lot, and I pray that you'll forgive us, God, that you'll put a humble heart in us so that we would repent and fall uh at your feet and love you and worship you, God, so that we can stand up and walk with you and follow you for the rest of our days. Help us to know when we're being called to something, to serve, to lead, to do whatever you might have us do in this church or in our community. Help us to know that and to step out in confidence, not because of who we are, but because of you are. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.