Boldness: Confronting fear and insecurity
Judges 6 & 7
Fear is a thief. It steals the inner sense of tranquility and well-being that should be the constant state of each and every believer. It keeps us focused on our past and uneasy about our future. It renders our present un-enjoyable.
Cycle/circle drawing
How do we overcome our fears and live with boldness?
1. We must face our past with honesty. 6:1
Sometimes fears are tied to the failures of others
Sometimes fears are tied to our own past failures
Sometimes facing fear means seeking restoration.
Seeking forgiveness relieves fear
Granting forgiveness relieves fear
2. We must see ourselves with clarity. 6:12
3. We must see our future with security. 6:12, 14, 16; 7:9
“When fear knocks on the door—let Faith answer.”
Fear and insecurity. This is a double edged sword that cuts through and cuts off our peace of heart and mind—and keeps us from living a confident, bold, victorious life.
Fear is a thief. It steals the inner sense of tranquility and well-being that should be the constant state of each and every believer. It keeps us focused on our past and uneasy about our future. It renders our present un-enjoyable.
Turn to Judges 6. We continue our series entitled, “Freeway: stories on the path to freedom.” We’re studying some of the great stories of the Bible that God preserved for us so that we can walk in the freedom Jesus purchased for us with Hi blood.
This morning we’re going to examine the story of a young man by the name of Gideon. It’s a familiar story to some; but to others, maybe not so much.
The setting of the story is important. Israel has been back in the promised land for less than 100 years at this point. Despite Yahweh’s redemptive act at delivering them from the slavery in Egypt, His provision of manna and water during the wilderness wanderings, His supernatural empowering them to overcome Jericho and other cities in the promise land, they drifted away from God. They began to worship the idols of the Canaanites, most prominently Baal and Asherah.
So God raised up what are called Judges. Not judges like we think of today. These were men and women who called the Israelites back to their devotion to the one True God, Yahweh. There was a cycle that took place over and over again: They would drift from devotion to God & pursue false gods; God would allow the enemies to steal & pillage & harass the Israelites; They would call out to Yahweh for deliverance; God would raise up a judge, a leader, who would deliver them.
(can we show this in a circle, with arrows moving clockwise thru these 4 positions on 4 slides sequentially?)
Gideon was one of those judges. Here’s his story. One day Gideon was threshing wheat in a wine vat. Normally wheat would be threshed out in the open, with ox treading on it or pushing pole that would grind the grain in a container. (pic) So he has this wooden object beating the wheat to separate it from the stalk and chaff. Apparently this vat was behind a structure and hidden.
Why was Gideon hiding? There was a group of bad dudes called the Midianites who were stealing, pillaging, and harassing the Israelites and taking all their food. So Gideon is hiding this so they don’t see him and steal the grain.
While he’s doing this, the Lord shows up. “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” Judges 6:12 Here’s Gideon, hiding, and God calls him a mighty warrior. As you’re going to see, Gideon sees himself as anything BUT a mighty warrior.
Gideon says, “Well, if the Lord is with us, why are the Midianites kicking our backside all the time?” “The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and deliver Israel from the power of Midian. Am I not sending you?” Judges 6:14
Gideon’s looking around: “Wait. What? You talking to me? My family is the smallest in Israel… and I’m the youngest in my family…and, and, I’m afraid.” God said, ““But I will be with you, and you’ll be victorious.”
Now you’d think that would be enough for Gideon, right? God Himself has shown up in some kind of physical form. But no. Gideon asks for a sign. Before it’s all over, Gideon asks for a sign 3 times. The first time, Gideon prepares a sacrifice, puts it on a rock, not on wood, and God touches the rock and fire consumes the offering.
After this first sign, Gideon says, “OK, what do you want me to do?” God said, “Take your father’s young bull and a second bull seven years old. Then tear down the altar of Baal that belongs to your father and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. 26 Build a well-constructed altar to the Lord your God on the top of this rock. Take the second bull and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah pole you cut down.” Judges 6:25-26
He does this, but he doesn’t do it during the daytime because he’s afraid of the townspeople. So he does it at night, but they find out he did it anyway, and the people come after him to kill him, but his dad talks them out of it.
Then God says, “I want you to blow the horn and call the Isralites to battle the Midianites. But Gideon asks for that 2nd sign: “God, I’m going to lay this fleece on the ground, and if it’s really you speaking, make the fleece wet with dew, but the ground around it dry.” Gets up the next morning, and that’s exactly what happened.
But Gideon the Fearful asks for a 3rd sign: “God, this time make the ground wet but keep the fleece dry.” Gets up the next morning, sure nuff, the ground was wet but the fleece was dry.
So Gideon is good to go, but God isn’t. He tells Gideon he’s got too many men! He has about 32,000 The Midianites are over 135,000 and God tells him to thin it out!! So Gideon says, “If you’re afraid right now, and don’t want to fight—go on home.” And 10,000 leave. Would you have gone home? Anyway, God says, “You still have too many men. “The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many people for Me to hand the Midianites over to you, or else Israel might brag: ‘I did it myself.’ Judges 7:2 I don’t want you guys to think the victory was something you did, so thin them out again. This time Gideon got them to drink water out of a stream. The ones who drank it out of the stream, he sent home. The ones who pulled it up into their hands, he kept. How many out of the 32,000 did he have left? 300!!
But with the Lord on their side, they rout the Midianites and run them out of the country.
So, what are the intersects between this story and our stories? How do we overcome our fears and live with boldness?
1. We must face our past with honesty. 6:1
“The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord handed them over to Midian seven years, 2 and they oppressed Israel.”
When we’re a prisoner to our past, we view our gifts and abilities as insufficient, and view our life experiences as mostly a string of rejections and failures. The result is that we become fearful...
Sometimes fears are tied to the failures of others. That was the case of Gideon. Apparently he was not a Baal worshipper. But he was living in fear of the consequence of the failures and disobedience of those around him.
Story
Sometimes fears are tied to our own past failures. This is the case most of the time. For the Israelites in general, there was no peace in their lives and they lived under the fear of their enemy 24/7. I like how Andy Stanley puts it:
“You only make PEACE with your past by owning your PIECE of the past.” Andy Stanley
Sometimes facing fear means seeking restoration. Tear down the altars.
Seeking forgiveness relieves fear Story
Granting forgiveness relieves fear Story
2. We must see ourselves with clarity. 6:12
“The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” Judges 6:12
Gideon didn’t see himself that way, did he? But God saw something in Gideon that Gideon himself didn’t see.
“The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.” Steven Furtick
We have to stop listening to the lies….stop listening to what others may be saying…stop listening to our feelings and start focusing on what God says about us and how God feels about us.
How do you see yourself? Weak? Timid? A failure? Unlovable? Unsuccessful? Unable to overcome the inner and outer struggles of your life? When we give into fear, we give into a perspective about ourselves that just isn’t how God sees us.
If we don’t work extra hard at retraining our neurosystem, we will continue to experience fears from our past.
“One way to help patients diminish the impact of an anxiety-producing memory is to guide them to form a new memory that inhibits, or extinguishes, expression of the fearful memory that inhibits, or extinguishes, expression of the fearful memory during any recall attempt” Roger Pittman, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School
This goes back to what we’ve studied the past couple of years. Ephesians 1 reminds us that God chased us, chose us, loved us, redeemed us, rescued us, adopted us, sealed us and marked us as His own special possession. Romans 8 reminds us that “we are more than victorious through Him who loved us.” Romans 8:37
Let me recommend that you spend a month reading 2 chapters of the Bible every day: Ephesians 1 and Romans 8 I know that I know that I know that if you, no matter who you are, read those 2 chapters every day for 30 days, you’re whole perspective about yourself will change dramatically.
3. We must see our future with security. 6:12, 14, 16; 7:9
“The Lord is with you” 6:12 (Build)
“Am I not sending you?” 6:14
“But I will be with you.” 6:16
“ Each Israelite took his position around the camp, and the entire Midianite army fled, and cried out as they ran” 7:21
Brothers and sisters, we who call ourselves Christ-followers, can we not stand on the promises and character of God when fear knocks at our door? I like that quote, “When fear knocks on the door—let Faith answer.”
Finally, Gideon responded in faith. The result was that the enemy was conquered, the fear was vanquished, and Gideon ended up being mentioned in the great Hall of Faith list in Hebrews 11.
Closing Illustration
