Growing while you are groaning
Judges 6:11 -23
Pretext come from Judges 6:1-6
I want to define two words before I move on with today’s topic real quickly.
1. Groaning is a word define by the English dictionary as making an inarticulate noise or an unusual sound which is cause by Pain or Suffering
And
2. Growing is another word of the English language which is defined as to increase by natural development or to become wiser and mature by experience
So if we would put those two words together we would come up with the Topic or Title of today’s sermon.
Growing while you are Groaning
The question has to be asked real, real, quickly right here, what does groaning and Growing have to do with Gideon. What does it have to do with Gideon asking questionings to God and putting God thru all sorts of testes? What does Groaning and Growing have to do with me and what I’m going thru today. What does Growing while you are Groaning really mean?
Groaning is an unusual noise that someone or something makes while they are in pain, but wait, without the Groaning you can’t really recognize the pain, and without the pain you can’t recognize your own growth.
Tell your neighbor, Oh Oh, here he Goes
See The noise that you make while you are Groaning is an unusual one, meaning that while you are going thru you are making some type of noise, catch me right here,
but since it’s an unusual type of noise, people can’t really understand that the noise that you are making is really an S.O.S, your Groaning is really nothing but you raising your hand with your voice saying look at me, I’m going Thru and I need help right now. So without the noise, you can’t get no help, and without the help, you wind up missing the outcome of Growing while you are Groaning.
Tell your neighbor: lean back and chill he about to break away
Break that thing down a little bit more for me then preacher. A lot of people or hurting, a lot of people are confuse, A lot of people are broken down, a lot of people or busted and disgusted, a lot of people are undecided what they are going to do, Where they are going to live, and how they are going to get there, A lot of people are having marital problems, a lot of people are thinking about past relationships, but wait they thinking about them in the midst of there marriage.
A lot of people are liars, A lot of people are prideful, but they stunten and faking so hard so everybody can think that they life are peaches and cream but really and truly it stink like a rotten egg, they stunt so hard like every thing is cool like that, and I really believe that they can be up for an academy award for the number 1 stunter, a lot of people are so worried about what somebody going to say about them and their problems, that they are going thru and in the mist of them going thru they are missing God, they missing there help, they missing there deliverance and Now they are so stuck in there lies that they can’t even grow.
Tell your neighbor: I might Groaning but I’m Growing
Have you ever saw somebody like that, they were so embarrass about their problem, that they didn’t even tell nobody, and the outcome was that they never receive any help, for there Groaning
Tell your neighbor: they was stuck
Well if we look at today’s text, we will see one of the most remarkable at the same time the most beneficial story in scripture. This story is often overlook because people focus more on Gideon questioning God and less on the response of God to Gideon. A little past our text, we see the encouraging response that God often gives in the midst of our situations. Most people fell that when you are going thru that It’s wrong to go to God and question him, but who should you go to when you need answers.
Turn to James 1:5-6 God to God and Faith, and you can’t waver
Gideon did just that, Because of Israel’s Sin, every year for Harvest time, when Israel sow their seeds for food, just about when Israel about to get on there feet and reap their harvest, the Midianites come and destroy the land, not just the land but the harvest to. The next year when Israel about to get back on there feet again; the Midianites come and do it again. So now they are starting to get tired of the Midianites so they cry out to the lord. The same time that they were crying, Young Gideon is separating the wheat from the chaff so he can stash something to eat, remember the Midianites always come and take Israel food. Well while he trying to stash something to eat this angel appears to Gideon. (Read v11 - 12)
Now right now you have to visualize your self in Gideon shoes. The day that God visited him or the theophany of God visits him in the angelic being form. Gideon was doing work that was usually done by animals. But because of the Midianites, Because of Israel Sin, He had to do the goat and the donkey Job. Now in the midst of the frustration of him doing the animal job this angel appear to Gideon and says “The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour or you mighty warrior”
The first thing he did was looked at his situation. He looked and saw that he was doing a donkey Job, He looked and saw he was hiding in a cave from the Midianites, he look and saw that these people was punking Israel, He looked and saw all the devastation and disappointment all his peoples was going thru, He didn’t think but just reacted and started talking stupid to the angels. Saying If the lord be with us, why then is all this negativity happening, where is the miracles that my fathers and ancestors always talked about (Read V 13)
How many us talk stupid because of our situation, and think that God left us along and is not there?
So in the midst of the angel talking to Gideon, he still felled played because of all this negative he sees, he fell like this angel got the nerve to say God with me and I’m a mighty warrior when they keep taking our food.
Gideon Total felt that God had deserted Israel, but he forgot that God is a Promise Keeper, He forgot about What God promise about Idolatry, The conditional promises, The Cause and Effect of Sin, How it will distort the true vision of God, How sin is an abomination to God, Gideon was just focus on the situation, Not only that but he then try to blame somebody for the oppression that was going on .
Gideon represents a lot of us in church today, Always trying to blame somebody else for our situation when we put ourselves there. Gideon Focuses on the negative result of their sin, while God was eager to focuses on his positive promises of deliverance, grace, mercy, and kindness.
That’s why you can’t forget the promises God made to you, while you was going thru. It’s the thing to get you thru your situation.
Turn to Isaiah 44:22
Basically you can’t focus on the negative when you are going thru, but you have to praise God for the promises. For him being a mercy for God and withholding what you rightfully deserve, for him being a kind God and always giving you peace when you deserve war, for him being a graceful God giving you what you don’t deserve, for him being a Redeemer , for him being a provider, for him being a comforter, for him being a healer, for him being a deliver, for him being a way maker, for him being an eye opener, for him being a regulator, for him being an on time God, for him giving us revelation, for him giving us wisdom to know right from wrong, for him just being in my life when I can be living in the world, thinking I’m a good guy at the same time about to bust hell wide open, that just make me give God thanks
Because you have to understand, the only reason why God was with Gideon, and the only reason why God is with us, is because of his love. His love is so unconditional that even thou we mess up, God still forgive us, His love is so great that when we were yet sinner, Christ died for us to give us salvation, He love us so much that he sacrifice his only son, He love us so much that he made us a promise in Matthew 28:20 , Numbers 23:19
So the only reason he was with Gideon, even thou Gideon got was getting sporty, was because of the promise he made, that even when my mother and father forsoke me God psalms 27:10 I don’t need nobody to complete me so long as I got God I got every thing I need
God wasn’t just there to fulfill the promise only, but he was also there to commission him to fulfill his promise (Read V14-16)
Gideon was going thru, but in the midst of him going thru, he had a time to vent to God, God responded back and still was there, God then announced Gideon purpose in verse 12 when the angel appeared and said the lord is with you. Your purpose Gideon is you are a mighty warrior, but wait he going thru, he’s groaning, he’s making some type of unusual noise from his pain, but God do something in the midst of his pain, God commission Gideon by giving him his mission now, God says you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites, and then he gave a promise after the mission and Surely I will be with thee
We get so focus on our pain, we get so focus on what we lost, we get so focus on how people treat us, we get so focus on what people are doing to us, we get so focus on complaining about all the negativity that happening to us, we get so focus on why this happening to us, that we miss the 3 things that happen in this situation. Gideon received his purpose, mission, and a promise all while he was groaning. His purpose was he was a warrior, his mission was to save Israel, and His promise was God will be with him.
God faithfulness transfers his situation to his identification! But everything is conditional on faith. So Gideon had to believe in order to operate in his purpose
So now he had to test the spirit by the spirit to know if it really was the spirit speaking to him. He just couldn’t believe that he was going to save Israel. He just couldn’t go off any thing that he heard, so he had to test the spirit by the spirit.
Remember when he was being sporty to the angel he said where is this Lord that my Fathers told us about. Remember it was the Jewish custom for the father to teach there children about God (Shema) Deut 6:3 - 19. Then he went back to the law Leviticus 9:18 - 24
See sometime you have to do to get thru is go back to what you was taught to get over some rough places.
Read v17- 24
God was operating in promise, but he was operating in situation that lead to the promise, he had to do some groaning in order to grow, he had to go true some pain in order to have an experience, and because of his experience he learned to trust God. So out his pain he matured in one area that he named the altar Jehovah shalom, God is his peace
He learned in his pain that God was his peace to get out the pain.
