From Ordinary to Extraordinary
Series Introduction
Slide
Do you ever think that God is unable to use you?
Maybe you feel that you aren’t very gifted or talented.
Maybe you feel just like an ordinary person. Or maybe you feel less than ordinary and you will never be able to be used in a significant way for the Lord.
Well, I want to give you some encouragement.
Over the next several weeks, we are going to be looking at various individuals of the Bible who were just ordinary, or even less than ordinary people, who God used to do extraordinary things.
I want to let you know that no matter
what stage of life you are in,
what hindrances lay in front of you,
how much you lack in gifts, abilities, or knowledge,
God desires to use you in extraordinary ways to expand His kingdom.
It is my hope that as we look at various individuals from the Bible over the next couple months, you might see a bit more clearly how God can and wants to use you.
Sermon Introduction
Today we are going to begin by taking a look at Gideon.
Slide
Many of you probably know the name Gideon if you have ever stayed in a hotel or motel. The Gideon’s are the ones who place the Bibles in hotels around the world.
But before Bibles were being placed in hotels around the world, there was a man named Gideon whom God used in an extraordinary way.
Turn with me to Judges 6:11.
P. 174
Slide
We are going to see what we can learn from the story of Gideon that may prepare us to be used by God in an extraordinary way.
Background on Judges and the History of Israel at that time
After Joshua led Israel to occupy the Promised Land, the people of Israel served the Lord throughout his lifetime. But after Joshua’s generation died, Israel turned away from the Lord God.
Throughout Judges we see a repeated cycle of
God’s blessing,
spiritual complacency,
sin (idolatry – They served the Baals),
suffering at the hands of enemies,
a cry for help, and
God’s deliverance through someone He raised up (a Judge).
Gideon is one of the people God raises up during this time to lead the Israelites.
Now the time leading up to the specific events concerning Gideon are that Israel has been sinning by turning to false gods and the Lord has given them into the hands of the Midianites.
The Midianites would attack the Israelites and take their crops and destroy what they did not take.
This had been going on for about 7 years when God came to Gideon.
Now let’s read
Judges 6:11-40
11 The angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. 12 When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior."
13 "But sir," Gideon replied, "if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, ’Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian."
14 The LORD turned to him and said, "Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?"
15 "But Lord," Gideon asked, "how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family."
16 The LORD answered, "I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together."
17 Gideon replied, "If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. 18 Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you."
And the LORD said, "I will wait until you return."
19 Gideon went in, prepared a young goat, and from an ephah of flour he made bread without yeast. Putting the meat in a basket and its broth in a pot, he brought them out and offered them to him under the oak.
20 The angel of God said to him, "Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth." And Gideon did so. 21 With the tip of the staff that was in his hand, the angel of the LORD touched the meat and the unleavened bread. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel of the LORD disappeared. 22 When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the LORD, he exclaimed, "Ah, Sovereign LORD! I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face!"
23 But the LORD said to him, "Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die."
24 So Gideon built an altar to the LORD there and called it The LORD is Peace. To this day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
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."
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 men of the town, he did it at night rather than in the daytime.
28 In the morning when the men 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 men 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 called Gideon "Jerub-Baal," saying, "Let Baal contend with him," because he broke down Baal’s altar.
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 upon 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.
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. This time make the fleece dry and the ground covered with dew." 40 That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.
In chapter 7 and 8 we see that about 32K men came out to follow Gideon into battle against 135K Midianites.
God whittled that number down to 300 men that Gideon had to fight against the Midianites because he did not want Israel to boast that they did this great miracle.
God wanted them to know that it was God who was watching over them and protecting them and that they needed always to trust in Him.
I encourage you to read the next 2 chapters on your own this week, but we are going to stop there and take a look at several things from what we have read so that we might learn some of the things that Gideon needed to learn that God also wants us to learn.
The first thing we need to learn is to
Focus on who God says we are instead of
who Society says we are
Slide
Judges 6:11-16
God calls Gideon a mighty Warrior.
In his Society, Gideon was a nobody, a zero.
His family was the weakest in his tribe he is the least in his family.
Gideon is saying,
Hey God, I can’t be used.
God, you have got it wrong. You must not know who I am.
“Do you know the servant of the poor family down the block? Well I am just the gum that is stuck to the bottom of her shoe.”
God, you must have me mistaken for someone else.
I am a nobody, a zero.
Do you ever feel like Gideon?
Like you can’t make anything go right?
Maybe in this tough economy you are struggling to provide for your family, or even yourself.
Maybe you feel like Gideon, just barely trying to survive.
Notice where Gideon is.
Winepress
He is threshing wheat in a winepress.
Our cultural context limits our ability to fully get what is going on here.
A winepress in ancient Israel was typically hewn out of stone.
It would be a small area which is far from ideal for threshing wheat.
Typically wheat would be threshed in an open area
It would be beat or trampled to separate the wheat from the straw and then winnowed or thrown into the air to let the wind take the straw while the wheat dropped to the ground.
Gideon is in a winepress that is surrounded on all sides and has a tree near it.
This is far from the ideal place to thresh wheat, but he is afraid.
He is afraid of having his food stolen.
He is afraid of the Midianites coming and killing him.
He is afraid of losing everything.
So he is in a winepress threshing wheat to keep what little he can.
Maybe you are in a winepress right now.
Maybe you are just trying to keep your job.
Maybe you are afraid of not being able to provide for your family.
Maybe you feel like a zero.
Stop focusing on who you say you are and focus on who God says you are.
You see God not only knows who you are, The important thing is that He knows who He is.
And God can do all things and make you a useful tool.
He wants to do that because of who He has made you to be.
You are a Child of God
Slide
If you have trusted Jesus as your Savior, God says you are His child.
John 1:12
12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God- (from New International Version)
You are Valuable to God
Slide
Jesus tells us that we are valuable to God
Matthew 6:26-33
26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? …
28 "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? … 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Listen, in your own eyes and even in the eyes of society, you may think you are not useful to God or you don’t have what it takes to be used by Him.
The reality is that God is not dependent upon you to accomplish anything.
But, He has chosen to use people like you and me to accomplish extraordinary things for his glory.
Listen to what Paul writes to the Corinthians in
1 Corinthians 1:26-30
26 Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things-and the things that are not-to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him.
Gideon cannot boast before God that He did anything for God.
But Gideon received a great blessing in that God did unbelievable things through him.
“Well, Scott, not only do I feel like a zero, but I don’t even have the faith to believe God can use me.”
Well, the second thing we need to do is
Realize that God is faithful when we are faithless
Slide
Judges 6:17-24; 33-40
Gideon had a pretty weak faith.
We see him seeking out signs that God is really God and that He is really leading Gideon to do this.
We see in
Judges 6:17, He says
"If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. 18 Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you."
And the LORD said, "I will wait until you return."
We see even after he knows what God has said is true and has even raised Gideon up and made him a leader with people following him, he needed his faith to be encouraged.
Look at
Judges 6:36-40
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. This time make the fleece dry and the ground covered with dew." 40 That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.
Gideon had faith that was small.
Maybe you have a faith that is small, that probably feels like no faith at all.
If you are sitting out here today, I want to encourage you that God has given you mustard seed faith and I want to encourage you even further that God is patient with us in our lack of faith.
2 Timothy 2:13 says “if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.”
We don’t see God blast Gideon for his weak faith.
We see God patiently work to grow Gideon’s faith.
God knows right where Gideon is at.
God knows right where you are at.
God is patiently working to grow your faith.
It was not so much that Gideon needed a sign to know what to do.
He knew what God wanted him to do.
It is that he needed a sign as an encouragement to do it.
As we mature, we should not need that as much.
But God is merciful and patient with us.
God is faithful to help you grow even when you feel like you have no faith at all.
The third thing we need to learn though if we are going to go from zero to hero is that you need to
Expect to be challenged privately before being used publicly
Slide
Judges 6:25-32
God wanted to grow Gideon’s faith, but he does that through making us use the faith he has given us.
And he always starts in smaller ways that are close to home for us.
For Gideon, He tells him to tear down his family’s alter to Baal and build a new alter to the Lord and make a sacrifice.
God starts to grow Gideon’s faith in his own backyard before He is going to use him in a bigger way to defeat Israel’s enemies.
Maybe you desire to be used by God.
That is a good desire.
In the New Testament, when Paul is talking to Timothy about elders, he says
1 Timothy 3:1 - If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task.
It is good to desire to be in a position of influence. I believe God puts that desire in those he desires to use.
It is a God given desire.
But understand that God is going to test that desire by starting out challenging your character in smaller, private ways, before using you in larger more public ways.
Gideon, tear down that altar to Baal.
Where is the Lord challenging you?
Slide
Character issue
Maybe he is challenging you in regards to your character.
Maybe you have some private sin you need to overcome.
Are you viewing pornography?
Are you having a problem with drinking?
If you have been drunk or buzzed due to your drinking, you have a problem with it.
Are you having a problem with lying?
God is going to challenge you in your private life before using you in a larger more public way.
Service
Maybe it isn’t in an area of personal integrity, but maybe He is challenging you to serve in a small, unnoticed way.
Maybe you feel that God is calling you to full time ministry.
I will guarantee that God is going to challenge you in steps of service before using you in a larger way.
Are you serving with the gifts God has given you now?
Take a step and teach a Sunday School.
Maybe you can help lead a small group Bible study
I want to tell you that all leadership begins with serving.
Take a step of service.
Obedience
Maybe it is an issue of obedience.
Are you going to do what God says or are you only going to do the things that you feel like doing?
I know there are some here who need to be baptized the way the Bible says to be baptized.
We have a baptism opportunity coming up on August 10th.
You are going to be challenged to be obedient in smaller ways before being used in larger ways.
And this leads right into the last thing we need to learn.
We need to learn to
Act in the “obedience that comes from faith” instead of worrying about the odds of finding Success
Slide
In Romans 1:5, Paul tells us that he has been given an apostleship to call people from among the Gentiles to an “obedience that comes from faith.”
I told you at the beginning of this message that the Midianites had 135K people in their army while Gideon had only 32K.
That doesn’t seem like very good odds.
But then God says that is too many.
And he whittles Gideon’s army down to 300 men.
300 to 135,000.
Those odds don’t seem very good.
God doesn’t call us to calculate the odds of success in obeying Him.
He calls us to obey Him.
Success is obeying Him
You may think to yourself, how is getting baptized going to help me fulfill my calling. That water is nothing special.
It isn’t the water, it is the obedience.
You may think how volunteering to help stack chairs or help in Powerzone or help ff bulletins going to help me be used by God?
It is acting in obedience to what God has placed in front of you that will help you grow in faith and prepare you to be used in extraordinary ways.
We spend too much time worrying about if God’s plan is a good one instead of following His good plan.
Isaiah 55:8-9 says
8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD.
9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Conclusion
I want to end with a story.
A story of a group of about 35 people and an unlikely leader whom God called to lead.
This person had zero experience in leading a group like this.
This person had zero experience in doing what God was calling him to do.
That person felt like a zero.
That zero was me.
It was in the fall of 2000 that I felt that the Lord was calling me into fulltime ministry.
And like Gideon, I was thinking the Lord had the wrong person.
Um Lord, I have an economics degree not a Bible degree.
But His call was clear so I began pursuing my seminary education.
I was still working when I heard God call me to begin to serve Him full time.
Um Lord, I am not done getting my degree yet, how am I going to provide for my family?
Then I heard Him say, are you going to trust Me or a paycheck?
I left my job and served full time volunteering at the church I was at.
I ended up coming on staff there as an associate pastor.
During the time of volunteering and even as an associate pastor, I did not earn enough to support my family, but we made it anyway.
“Seek first His kingdom and all these things will be added unto you.”
A year and a half after coming on staff at that church, the Lord showed me it was time for my faith to grow some more.
He opened up an opportunity for me to be an interim pastor here while the church was looking for a full time pastor.
I thought at the time that maybe this would be good experience for where the Lord would eventually call me.
As I began serving here, I really felt that the Lord was calling me here but I had no idea how to lead this church and besides that of the 35 people that would attend on a Sunday, only about half of those were adults who were committed to serving.
From a human perspective, it did not look like very good odds, but like I said, God calls us to obedience not to calculate the odds.
Well, God began closing the doors on others who were being considered for the role of pastor here.
I really believe that God wanted to use just an ordinary person
who had no experience,
who had no resume,
so that people would know that what has gone on at Hickory Creek is no work of man, but is completely a work of God.
What a blessing it has been to be a part of this work of God.
It has been just over 3 years since God began doing this work and He has done extraordinary things during that time, not because I am extraordinary or anyone else here is extraordinary.
It is because God is extraordinary and He shows that by using ordinary people.
And I do not believe that God is done using ordinary people in extraordinary ways here.
I don’t doubt that He is wanting to use many other ordinary people here to continue to do extraordinary things.
Are you willing?
If you are, then show that willingness by
Believing what God says about who you are in Christ
Trust God’s faithfulness and let him grow your faith.
Face the private, smaller challenges that God places in front of you, and
Act in obedience in following His leading.
After we pray, we are going to sing a song that asks God to show His power in us.
Let’s pray.
