Last week we learned how God told the ‘scaredy-cat’, Gideon, “Go and fight the evil and injustice!” (summarised of course). And here’s the kicker, God promises to be with Him to get this done! (read blog entry: Gideon #1: Man/Woman Up!)
If you claim to be a Christian, you have been called to stand up! To Man UP! To Woman UP! … to do whatever it take to fulfil the will of God.
So, what do you think happens next after we left Gideon last week?
Gideon doesn’t have a moment where he supernaturally transforms into a super-warrior! He does something far less exciting and far less prestigious. He simply trusts God and obeys God’s will. And so it begins.
Gideon is Transformed through Obedience… (Once again, see how if you see a bit of yourself in Gideon’s story…)
Text: Judges 6: 25-40
25 That same night the Lord said to him, “Take the second bull from your father’s herd, the one seven years old. Tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.
26 Then build a proper kind of altar to the Lord your God on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second bull as a burnt offering.”
- The first part of Gideon’s call was to take on the evil in his own family. Why? To obey the first commandment , “You shall have no other gods except me’ (Ex. 20:3). God refuses to compete with other so-called-gods.
- By asking for the second bull was, yet again, was an act of God’s grace by not demanding their prize bull. Their sins needed to be forgiven and it was right for God to demand the best offering, but God showed Grace instead.
27 So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the townspeople, he did it at night rather than in the daytime.
- I love that the Bible tells us that he was afraid - This that helps us relate to Gideon.
- When God asks us to do something, 10 to 1 we will also feel afraid, but will we allow that fear to control us or will we STEP UP, like Gideon, and be obedient to the call of God?
28 In the morning when the people of the town got up, there was Baal’s altar, demolished, with the Asherah pole beside it cut down and the second bull sacrificed on the newly built altar!
29 They asked each other, “Who did this?” When they carefully investigated, they were told, “Gideon son of Joash did it.”
30 The people of the town demanded of Joash, “Bring out your son. He must die, because he has broken down Baal’s altar and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.”
31 But Joash replied to the hostile crowd around him, “Are you going to plead Baal’s cause? Are you trying to save him? Whoever fights for him shall be put to death by morning! If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar.”
32 So that day they gave Gideon the name Jerub-Baal, saying, “Let Baal contend with him,” because he broke down Baal’s altar.
- The reason why he was named Jerub-baal was to testify that this ‘god’, Baal, was powerless and couldn’t even defend his own altar, therefore proving he wasn’t a real god at all.
A quick recap:
- Gideon was told to do something. He was afraid but he did it anyway.
- People wanted to kill him but they never did.
- Don’t think that when God calls you, everything will work out to your expectations…
- It won’t. Christianity is tough. We sense it, we know it! That’s why we are reluctant to follow the will of God. But we need to ask ourselves: “Are we obedient to God; or Not? What’s more important: our self-preservation or the will of God?
- Gideon chose to be obedient to the will of God, despite his fears and insecurities.
See what happens next…
33 Now all the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples joined forces and crossed over the Jordan and camped in the Valley of Jezreel.
34 Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, summoning the Abiezrites to follow him.
35 He sent messengers throughout Manasseh, calling them to arms, and also into Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali, so that they too went up to meet them.
- Here we see that two sets of armies start assembling, preparing for battle. And due to Gideon’s obedience, “He was taken over and energised by the Spirit of the Lord”[i]. This is when his transformation really takes place!
- He was not a scaredy-cat, hiding in a winepress anymore… His transformation started, through the power of the Holy Spirit, and became a warrior! Ready to do the will of God!
Even though Gideon knows what he must do but, still, his faith dwindled and so he sought reassurance from God:
36 Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised—37 look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.”
38 And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water.
39 Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew.”
40 That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.
- This last bit, once again, is SO like us! When we are stressed about doing the right thing, no matter how much we prayed before that moment, we also have a faith-wobble and quickly check in with God again to REALLY make sure that this is what God wants. Our ‘No. 99’ prayers go something like this, “Lord, is this is really what you want me to do, then please show me.” Am I right?
- Why? Because when the stakes are high… We need God! We need to know God is there. We need to be reassured that what we are doing the right thing. And when we do the right thing, God answers.
So, what does this mean for us?
Gideon was an average person, just like us, called by God to stand against evil and injustice in this world. He, too, was afraid at first. His faith also wavered and he needed reassurance. However, what made Gideon a cut above the rest was his willingness to obey God.
That transformed Him from a scared little man into becoming one of the greatest warriors in the Old Testament. He went from ordinary to extraordinary, because he obeyed God.
God wants us to be extraordinary!
Jesus asks us to obey Him, “If you love me, keep my commands” (John 14:15). This means that there are instructions for us to follow. Obedience to those commands means that we must submit ourselves to His authority and do what He tells us to do.
There are so many areas where we are not obedient. We like our ways and want our ways. Unfortunately our ways hi-jack us from becoming the people God has destined us to be. We sabotage our own spiritual well-being through disobedience. It’s stupid!
We must be obedient to God’s instructions but if you do not read the word of God (the Bible),then how will you know what to obey? How will you know what Jesus commands if YOU don’t read the Bible! It is not optional if you are a Christian!
You might be living in disobedience right now and not even know it!
Romans 12:2 “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
How will you be transformed if you are not reading the word of God that empowers you to know the will of God? If you don’t do that, the former is true… You will conform to the pattern of the world and be nothing more than a pleb.
Friends, most of us claim to be followers of Christ, but if we do not lead obedient lives, we cannot expect to be anointed by the Holy Spirit for God’s great works. And therefore, we stop ourselves from becoming who God wants us to be.
So we MUST identify, through the word of God, the areas in which we are not being obedient and do whatever it takes to become obedient.
Just like Gideon; we will feel afraid, we will doubt, but we must be obedient. When we are obedient to God, all the pieces of our lives will come together, and slowly we will be transformed by the Spirit of God to become extraordinary people.
WE are called to be extraordinary… just like Jesus! And it starts with day to day obedience.
Now Man/Woman Up, Be Obedient and Be Transformed. God is with you!
Gideon #3: Total Victory (Judges 7)
Whatever it takes, do the right thing!
[i] (Inter-Varsity Press, 1998 p. 272)
