Ashingdon 15 02 2009 Mighty Hero?
Tonight I want us to consider a passage of scripture that I’ve been thinking about this week, and as I got into preparing for this message I realised that there was so much that could be said that rather than Sermon notes I could end up writing a whole book.
But the Lord has led me to deal with just the key parts that are most appropriate for us today.
I believe this is something from God, I’m not going to say it’s a prophetic message but I do believe it is a message that the Lord has placed on my heart.
I believe we live in a time in history that are interesting times, these are interesting days. There are a number of ministers and churches that right now are preaching end times sermons.
In fact both Peter and Paul preached sermons about the pending return of Jesus. I don’t know when Jesus will come again; the bible says no one knows but God.
But, I am one of those who believes that every day is one day closer to the return of Jesus and so the reason I want us to look at this passage is that it is a passage that was written in interesting times in the history of God’s people.
Let’s look at Judges
This is a time where there was a generation that was around that did not remember what God had done for them, did not acknowledge what God had done for them, and this passage is about a man who was in a generation of people who did not acknowledge God, or the things he had done, much the same as the people in the world today that you and I interact with.
Judges 6:1-6 New Living Translation
The Israelites did evil in the LORD’s sight. So the LORD handed them over to the Midianites for seven years. 2 The Midianites were so cruel that the Israelites made hiding places for themselves in the mountains, caves, and strongholds. 3 Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, marauders from Midian, Amalek, and the people of the east would attack Israel, 4 camping in the land and destroying crops as far away as Gaza. They left the Israelites with nothing to eat, taking all the sheep, goats, cattle, and donkeys. 5 These enemy hordes, coming with their livestock and tents, were as thick as locusts; they arrived on droves of camels too numerous to count. And they stayed until the land was stripped bare. 6 So Israel was reduced to starvation by the Midianites. Then the Israelites cried out to the LORD for help.
Let’s just pause there a moment, just in that little passage there:
“Then the Israelites cried out to the LORD for help.”
I wonder in the World today right across the world we live in how many people are just like that – in a place where they are crying out for help, that they are in a situation or the circumstance of their life has dictated that they are at a place where they are saying:
God if you are real, if you exist, will you come and get involved in my life. In other words, a cry for salvation. I wonder how many people in the world today are crying out and saying God I want you to come and get involved in my life, in my world and I want you to do for me what I can’t do for myself.
Salvation could be put like this, it could be put that it is being rescued from the circumstances that we find ourselves in but also being rescued from ourselves.
The bible talks about Jesus as our salvation and we know that when we put our faith in him, he rescues us from our circumstances, he rescues us from ourselves but more importantly he rescues us from our sin and the consequence of our sin.
I wonder today how many people are crying out the same cry. God will you rescue me? Rescue me? Rescue me from me?
I think we live in a world where that cry is going up all over all day long. Not just in our easy comfortable western culture, and not just in places where because of the circumstances that people are born in they are in poverty or in horrific circumstances – I’m talking right across the board – everywhere.
How many people in this day and age are saying ‘god if you are real – come and rescue me’
I wonder how many of us at church tonight are in that place where we are saying ‘God I need you in this situation, I need you in this circumstance….rescue me.’ Maybe in your life right now, you are actually in a place that has nothing to do with what you’ve done but you’re in it. Or maybe you are in a situation that has everything to do with you. Maybe you’re in a place where you’re saying ‘I’ve had enough of this, how do I get free of it’, or maybe your just saying ‘how do I get free of me and closer to God’
Maybe right now there is a cry going out to our Lord.
This generation of people here in this passage had come to that point where they were crying out to God.
God rescue us from our circumstance, rescue us from our situation, and rescue us from ourselves.
Then it goes in verse 7
Judges 6:7-14 New Living Translation
7 When they cried out to the Lord because of Midian, 8 the Lord sent a prophet to the Israelites. He said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of slavery in Egypt. 9 I rescued you from the Egyptians and from all who oppressed you. I drove out your enemies and gave you their land. 10 I told you, ‘I am the Lord your God. You must not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you now live.’ But you have not listened to me.”
11 Then the angel of the Lord came and sat beneath the great tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abiezer. Gideon son of Joash was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. 12 The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “Mighty hero, the Lord is with you!”
13 “Sir,” Gideon replied, “if the Lord is with us, [[[hold on God is talking to Gideon – yet Gideon is talking about US – right here with the Lord speaking direct to him he is still thinking about the circumstance]]] why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn’t they say, ‘The Lord brought us up out of Egypt’? But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites.”
14 Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!”
I’m going to pause here – but when you get home read the rest of the chapter, I was going to read it out, but you can read it for yourself and see what the Lord can do.
And read on into chapter seven and you realise that here is a person that actually took God at His word, someone who despite his circumstances, despite his situation, stood up and God used him to be the answer to the cry of the people who were crying out ‘Lord if you are real, Lord where are you, Lord will you come and rescue me, God will you rescue me from my circumstances, will you rescue me from myself.’ Gideon ended up being someone that God used to be able to do that.
You with me?
Ok let’s just focus on one little statement ‘Mighty hero, the Lord is with you’
And Gideon replies God, don’t you know that I am the least in my entire family, don’t you know that I am at the bottom of the food chain, don’t you know I am the weakest in my family, my family is the weakest people group in the whole of Israel. Don’t you know that? Who am I?
Now see God comes to Gideon, and God did not say to Gideon you who are the weakest, you who are smallest, you who are the most insignificant, Gideon you who are part of the group of people who have messed up the most.
God did not come to Gideon and address his circumstances, he did not come and address his situation, and God did not even speak to Gideon’s own world view of himself. Your world view, is your self image, your self esteem, the way you value yourself, the way you have a mental picture of yourself, usually its formed by your experiences in life or the things that people have said to you or the things that people have done to you or the things that have happened to you, you tend to draw a mental picture of yourself and that’s where Gideon was.
Gideon responded from his mental picture of who he was but that is not what God spoke to. God spoke to him and said, God spoke to that something on the inside of him. God spoke to that something that every single one of us has on the inside. I believe that every single one of us has on the inside something that says, you know what there is more to me than my circumstances are dictating right now, there is more to me than the way I currently see myself, there’s more to me.
And God spoke to that, and God says ‘Hey mighty hero’.
Now I pondered this and I wrote down what I thought it means to be a hero, my definition if you will of what a hero is:
Heroes are people who rise up make a difference, make a stand and take on something that’s way beyond them that requires sacrifice and they do something that benefits others. Heroes are people who are given medals that they do not ask for selfless acts.
So Gideon, God came in, God spoke to him, he spoke to that thing in side and said you know what, you’re the sort of person that can rise up and make a stand and if you read through you find out that he did.
You’re the sort of person that can make a few sacrifices – read through he did.
You’re the sort of person who can rise up and take hold of something that is way beyond your own ability.
You’re the sort of person that can actually do something for others that they can nor do for themselves.
That’s who god spoke to. He spoke to that which every single one of us has inside us.
You see you and I, all of us are created in the image and likeness of the nature of God, and even Jesus Christ, ad everything he represents, represents God. God who stepped into, God who sacrificed, God who made a stand, God who got involved in people’s lives for their sake not for his sake.
You see you and I, because we are created in the likeness of God, because we are created in the image of God, that thing on the inside of us that if life was all going your way that you could be someone who stands up and says I want to be someone that makes a difference. I want to be someone that looks around the world I live in and say, you know there are a whole lot of things that I see that are unfair, there’s a whole lot of things happening that aren’t right there is something that needs to be done about this, someone needs to get something happening, and I feel like I would like it to be me.
Why do we love going to movies about heroes?
Why do we love watching? I was watching an interview with Mel Gibson about some of the films that he has made and he was asked a question about why he makes the movies he makes. And his answer went something like this, I believe people like going to watch movies, where people rise up out of their circumstances and become heroes and they identify with that because there is something inside everyone that wants to be like that hero on screen. I believe every single person is like that.’
How many people have that desire inside them to make a difference? Everyone has that, and that’s what God spoke to when he spoke to Gideon.
God was speaking to that part inside that is willing to do something, God spoke to that part that knows the circumstances may not be good but God can make a difference.
How many people live their lives and conduct their lives and somewhere along the line here they are on the course they are in life, and they get caught up in whatever circumstance is before them and instead of grabbing the circumstance, the circumstance grabs them, that they allow people to influence the way they think about themselves – cause remember that’s what Gideon responded to, Gideon did not respond to what God said, Gideon responded to how he saw himself, based on how his circumstances were and probably how the people around him has described him.
How did Gideon know that his clan was the weakest? How did he know that he was the weakest in the clan? How did he know that his people were the weakest? Someone told him. Someone had filled his mind. Someone had led him to set a mental image of himself, who he was and what he was about. Gideon’s frame of reference was where he responded to God from.
But God spoke to the inside of Gideon, the place where the change the world speech could play out inside him. The more I look into this the more I see that there are things we need to build into our lives that enable us to see ourselves as God sees us. The more I read this the more I see that God understands what He can do through us. The more I read this the more I see that God loves us too much to leave us to our self.
What is the circumstance in your life right now that you need to allow God to navigate you through? What is the circumstance that He can use you for His glory?
What is the circumstance where you can say God I believe you have spoken and I trust what you say?
What is it that God has spoken to you about that you want to be a part of? What is it that you are willing to do for him?
What is it that is calling you to say I want to change this in this world?
We are part of a generation, part of a time, and part of a season called Crunch.
And right now throughout this world there are hundreds, thousands, millions of people crying out saying ‘God RESCUE ME!’
And there are so many people alive in the world today that do not know the God we know, that have never heard of a personal God, a personal saviour, a personal Lord. They do not know the God that rescues people – Yet still they cry out. They cry out to the God who can answer prayers, who can change situations, who can deliver, who can save.
How many today are crying out ‘God if you are real, come rescue me’
The challenge is, are we willing to be the ones that God uses to reach this generation? Are we willing to allow God to use us? Are we willing to be a hero for God?
Are we willing to be the ones that God uses to change this area, this county, this country?
Are we prepared to do what God asks? Are we prepared to make a few sacrifices? Are we prepared to stand? Not doing it for a medal or a crown but because it needs to be done.
I wonder whether that is the people we are or the church we could be.
Are we willing to be the people that look around and say ‘You know what, we want the world to be a better place, we want to tell others about Jesus, we want to see people saved from a lost eternity, we want to see Jesus lifted high, we want to honour him, serve him, love him’ we want the world to know that whatever the circumstance, whatever the situation, God is able.
Will we allow God to inspire us. Will we allow God to use us. Will we respond?
Let’s not be a group of people where 20 years from now we have not made a difference. It’s not difficult to become a generation that ignores God’s ways; it’s not difficult to become a generation that ignores God’s call.
Don’t let the circumstance stop you. Don’t let the situation stop you. Let God work in you and through you. In every season of life God is able. When God speaks you need to listen, you need to respond, you need to say ‘God I am prepared to take you at your word’
I believe God wants to use us in the world today. I believe God wants us to be used in this generation. I believe God wants us to be where people are crying out – to point them to Jesus.
I believe God can use everyone of us for his glory, we can be a generation like no other, a generation that can stands up in the midst of a vacuum of despair and say – God can use us to change this world,.
The challenge of this message is simply this
‘Will you let the mighty hero out?’
Are you willing, that despite the circumstance, despite the situation, despite what you feel, despite what you fear to let the hero out? Are you willing? Is that you?
Do you feel like God is speaking to your heart?
‘Will you let the mighty hero out for the glory of God?’
Are you ready to let out what God sees inside of you?
Amen
