The courage Gideon needed for the future

LIMAVADY INDEPENDENT METHODIST CHURCH

SERMON NOTES FROM SUNDAY 21 MAY 2023

JUDGES 6 VERSES 24 - 32

It was not what Gideon would do through the Lord but rather what the Lord would do through Gideon.  We can be the very channels God could use in his great plan in the days ahead.  Are we prepared to be used? God has a plan to deliver men and women from their sins that is through his son Jesus.  He was sent into the world not to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved.  The last action in this meeting was to make an offering - verse 24.  Gideon makes a sacrifice to God and calls on Jehovah Shalom, the Lord is peace.  He found a great peace in meeting with the Lord.  It is wonderful to think you can come into God's presence with a heart broken in pieces, meet with God here in this house and find a peace that passeth all understanding.  Gideon had a mighty task in front of him.  There is a family in your house that needs to hear the gospel today.  There is a mission field from the doors of our church today.  It is wonderful when God challenges us to do that.  It is very easy to look to our own abilities, think who am I?  Let's look to God.  He is the answer today.  Look again at the meeting with God that Gideon had.  Can God use a man like this?  Can he use you today?  He used Deborah and Barak in bygone days but now he wants to use Gideon.  God has given us a mission field all around us today.

A challenge to Gideon.  The first test was whether he will go or not  A challenge to Gideon's mindset.  Before he would go to tell Israel he has to take a stand in his home and his community.  He had to bear the testimony.  He has to make an offering.  Do we need that challenge today?  To the mindset we have?  Verse 13 "the Lord is with thee."  Gideon looks and sees nothing but the poverty and starvation, a nation turned upside down.  God is going to work in a mindset to show he is with him.  God allows things to happen in our lives.  Isaiah was going through the waters and fire but God changed his mindset.  In verse 14 Gideon said he could not do it.  God had to work on his mindset.  Andrew looking out on the crowd, Jesus told them to go and feed them. Andrew found a little boy and brought his lunch to Jesus saying "what is this among so many?"  His mindset said nothing could work into this situation.  When you look around you and see many not saved you might ask "what am I amongst so many?"  What about Moses - his mindset out in the wilderness was tending to the flocks but he stopped at the bush.  God spoke into the situation  He knew everything about going back to Egypt "I couldn't, I am not eloquent."  Maybe God is dealing with your mindset today.  Sometimes we have to step out of the safe environment we are presently in.  What about the widow woman in Elijah's day?  God challenged her to feed the prophet.  When Elijah came he found this woman out gathering sticks.  She was going to prepare a little meal and that would be the last food they had.  Elijah told her to feed him first then there would be enough for her and her son.  Joshua followed Moses leading the children of Israel.  Joshua had to take the role Moses played one day.  In verse 12 the challenge came with one promise that overruled all his mindset.  That is what kept David going "yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me."  We need to offer ourselves holy unto the Lord and allow the Lord to work in us and through us.  In the days of trials and troubles God is with us.

The courage that was going to be needed.  Is it easy to work for the Lord?  No because you need courage.  You will be asked to do things that go against your grain.  Gideon would have to take a stand in his own home, to show a good testimony.  His father was a Baal worshipper.  He had raised up an altar in his own home.  The first task Gideon would have was to stand against that.  Maybe it takes greater courage to stand in the home, in the community, in the work place.  The day and hour you were saved in that family God gave you a responsibility to see the rest of your family saved.  Wouldn't it be awful to see them lost?  The principles of the home life are there in the very foundations of the bible.  You have to stand.  Whenever Jesus spoke to the religious leaders he pointed them back to creation and the roles within that.  Matthew 19 says "have ye not read".  It is important to go back to the word of God  "He made them male and female" in the very beginning then he went on to say in Matthew 19 verse 5 and "for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and they twain shall be one flesh."  Psalm 11 verse 2 "For lo the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart. If the foundations be destroyed what shall the righteous do?"  The foundations are being attacked today.  We need to take a firm stand in our own homes and in our families today.  The institution of marriage is under attack to redefine marriage.  We might look at it with a blind eye.  Our children are being deceived.  Uncertain of bodies.  Gender mix up because of the media.  God says stand fast for your family  Nothing is too hard for the Lord.  Deuteronomy 6 verse 5 tells us to teach our children and our childrens children.  Remember the demonic.  He couldn't stay in his home village.  He had to go out into the wilderness amongst the tombs.  At night he cried out, wounded himself.  No-one would pass by him until the Lord met with him and delivered him from every demon.  He said he would follow him.  Jesus told him no, here's what you are to do.  You are to go home to your friends and home village, tell them the great things the Lord has done for you.  Take a stand in your home and show them. That is the responsibility.  The foundations we need to build upon are bible study and fellowship. "Study to show thyself approved unto God."  Jesus spoke of the builder who builds his house on the rock.  We can build our families on the rock.  Studying his word produces what it says in that word.

The change that was going to be made.  This young man was told in verse 25 to take his fathers bullock and the second bullock, to throw down the altar of Baal and raise up a new altar to the Lord.  Gideon had to look within before he could look without.  He had to look into his own life and see the changes that needed to be made.  Isaiah could say" I am a man of unclean lips."  He received the purging as the angel lifted up the live coal.  Jesus spoke of the beam in our own eye before taking the beam out of someone else's eye.  Gideon had to destroy that altar and break the groove into pieces, to make a fire for sacrifice.  Isn't that what Elijah had to do?  To rebuild the altar of God.  He broke down the false altar first of all.  He had to lay down the sacrifice haphazardly.  There had to be changes to his thinking and attitudes.  This was done in fear and trembling.  Maybe you have to do the same and are afraid to do this.   Nicodemus came by night to see Jesus.  He didn't want anyone to see him.  Maybe there are changes in our lives that need to be made.  The altar of prayer needs to be built up again.  The altar of bible study maybe needs to be built again.  Maybe the quiet time needs to be built up again.

A criticism that came.  If you are going to live for God you will be laughed at.  The people of Gideon's day asked "who has done this, bring him out we will kill him."  Joash his father stood up for him - verse 32.  Maybe things need to be changed for us today.  It will bring criticism from our family and friends.  What stand are you going to take?