Last June, there was a small group of us who went and climbed Mount Major in New Hampshire. Similar to any mountain that you would climb, Mount Major had different degrees of difficulty along the way to the top. We started out in the parking lot, where it was completely flat and very easy to walk around. We all prepared and got our bags on as we prepared to begin our hike up the mountain.
From the parking lot we headed over to the beginning of the trail and began to walk through the woods. The beginning was a very easy climb. It was pretty much flat with a few roots or rocks that we had to watch out for so we didn’t trip. As we continued climbing though the trail began to have more hills and we started heading up the mountain. It was still a fairly easy climb but some of us who were out of shape began to feel a little bit of a burn in our calves and legs. We also began to see a lot more rocks and roots that we had to climb around or over to continue up the mountain.
Once we got about half way up the mountain the hills began to get steeper and more difficult to climb. We now had to scale up and over large boulders that were in the way of the path. Not only that, but we had to stop and think about how we were going to go up. Some of the rocks had a few different paths, varying in difficulty.
The climb was becoming a very good workout and a lot of us were getting pretty tired. We had to stop a few times before getting to the top to rest, drink some water, and regain some of our strength.
All of this paid off in the end though as we got to the top of the mountain. The view was spectacular and beautiful. All our hard work had paid off!
This experience of climbing a mountain is pretty similar no matter what mountain you are climbing, whether it’s Mount Major or Mount Everest. The higher you get up the mountain, the more difficult the climb becomes. It is these experiences of a mountain climb that, author and theologian, James Montgomery Boice compares the idea of faith to. He says the following in his book, Ordinary Men Called by God,
“The walk of faith is like that. The steps of faith lead uphill, but they begin gradually because our faith starts small. At first the incline is gradual; the climb is easy. But God has arranged the route so that the way becomes harder and the faith of the climber is inevitably strengthened with each step of his journey” (40)
It is this idea that our faith and relationship with God needs to continually grow that Gideon learns in the passage that we are going to look at today. Please open your Bibles to Judges 6:33-40 (pg. 239 in the pew Bibles)
***Read the text***
In this passage the enemy gains power and gathers together to prepare and destroy the Israelites. Gideon is moved by God to gather together his own army in the hope that they can defend their home land. We have to remember what has happened right before this to fully understand what Gideon is going through. Just before this, Gideon has had a face to face encounter with God which turned out to be this amazing experience. He saw fire come out of a rock to burn some meat which he gave as an offering to God. This truly was an amazing experience of God that gave him boldness and courage to carry out God’s plan to destroy the idols of Baal that his father had owned. Had had this amazing faith now AND he put it into practice immediately.
As Gideon gathers his army he makes a rather interesting request to God. He says in verse 36, “God, you promised that my army is going to kick butt and save Israel, but… can you just do this one thing so then I really will know that you will save us in battle?”
So Gideon makes this deal with God. He puts a piece of wool on the ground outside his tent and asks God to make it wet with dew and to keep the ground around it dry. When Gideon woke up, God had honored his request. The wool was soaked with dew and the ground was dry. So, that was enough to convince Gideon and he gathered his army and headed out for battle…and…wait a minute, that’s not what happened.
Gideon goes to God again and says, “Umm, can…you…just do that thing again…umm...but this time do the opposite. Make the wool dry and the ground soaked. Then I will really know you will protect us!!”
At this point, I think if I were God I would be getting very annoyed with Gideon. “How many times do I have to do this for you? I mean, why I even had to do it the first time, I’d never know. I spoke with you face to face, that wasn’t enough?! Come on!!” Thank goodness though that I am not God because that was not the way God responded to Gideon’s second request. In verse 40 it reads, “That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.”
Despite the amazing and moving encounter that Gideon had with God he still had areas of his faith that he needed to grow in. Gideon didn’t have a perfect faith or life just because he had talked with God face to face. Gideon still had weaknesses and faults and he still needed to grow closer to God. The beginning of faith is when we acknowledge that God is with and faith continues when we make it active in our lives; but there is always room to grow.
This same thing is true in our lives as well. Every single person in this room tonight all have ways that we can grow in our faith. There are areas that we don’t trust God with yet, there are things that we do that we shouldn’t be doing, and there are things in our lives that we don’t want to let go of.
It actually is really neat if you look at some of the men and women of faith that we have talked about already this year because they too needed to grow in their faith. Abraham, when God told him to leave his home and go to another land, stopped before he got there and God had to tell him a second time to get up and keep going. Sarah, Abraham’s wife laughed in God’s face when she was told she would give birth to a son at a very old age. Moses tried to save the Israelite people on his own, with his plan and ended up having to wait 40 years before he delivered the Israelite people out of Egypt by following God’s plan. Paul ignored 5 or 6 warnings not to go to Jerusalem, one of which was directly from the mouth of God. When he got there he was arrested for preaching and was in jail for two years. These men all needed to grow in their faith and learn how to follow God better just as we do today.
The important thing though is that we are working on growing closer to God. By saying we all have areas that we need to grow I am not saying that we can stay there. Jesus welcomes us to himself but then tells us to go and sin no more. My mentor Paul told me once, “As long as it’s a struggle you are doing ok.” What he means is that as long as you are working on scaling the mountain to get closer to God and not just sitting there and giving up it is pleasing to God.
I think we can see this attitude of God when we look at his reaction to Gideon’s request. As I said before, God could have refused. He could have mocked Gideon and gotten annoyed and upset, but he didn’t. God didn’t get annoyed or upset because he knew that Gideon’s faith was not perfect. God knew that Gideon needed to grow. In a sense, Gideon was admitting this to God when he asked Him for a sign. He was saying, “I believe you are there but I still have very weak faith. I need to grow in you.”
God too, knows that we do not have perfect faith. That is the whole reason that he sent his son Jesus to die on the cross. If we had the ability to develop a faith in God that was perfect and flawless, Jesus would not have had to die. Jesus died so that we would be forgiven of our lack of faith. Jesus died so that we could have a relationship with God and so we could grow closer to Him.
I think God has the same reaction to us, as he did with Gideon, when we are weak in faith. God doesn’t get upset with us and he doesn’t get annoyed. He gently uses different things to remind us that he is with us and he strengthens our faith. Going back to the analogy of climbing a mountain, I think it’s neat to think about the fact that a lot of the times when you are climbing a mountain, every once and a while you come to a clearing where you get a glimpse of the view that you will see on the top of the mountain. Those areas give you a chance to rest and fill you with hope and excitement before you head back into the woods to continue to climb.
Our relationship with God and our faith is a lot like climbing a mountain. When we start out we are excited and we have all eyes set on the top of the mountain, or heaven. It is a fairly easy climb at first as we get a lot of reassurance from God. As we begin to climb though we get tired and the climbing gets harder and we begin to forget why we are climbing and what awaits us at the top. We need to keep climbing and keep working though, always moving closer to the top and then we will see an amazing view at the top that will leave us breathless.
The beginning of faith is when we acknowledge that God is with and faith continues when we make it active in our lives; but there is always room to grow.
