The Power of Your Potential
Judges 6:11-24
11 Then the angel of the Lord came
and sat beneath the oak tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of
Abiezer. Gideon son of Joash had been 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, 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
The Lord answered, "I will stay here
until you return.” 19 Gideon hurried home. He cooked a young goat, and with
half a bushel of flour he baked some bread without yeast. Then, carrying the
meat in a basket and the broth in a pot, he brought them out and presented them
to the angel, who was under the oak tree. 20 The angel of God said to him,
"Place the meat and the unleavened bread on this rock, and pour the broth over
it.” And Gideon did as he was told. 21 Then the angel of the Lord touched the
meat and bread with the staff in his hand, and fire flamed up from the rock and
consumed all he had brought. And the angel of the Lord disappeared. 22 When
Gideon realized that it was the angel of the Lord, he cried out, "Sovereign
Lord, I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!” 23 "It is all right,” the
Lord replied. "Do not be afraid. You will not die.” 24 And Gideon built an
altar to the Lord there and named it "The Lord Is Peace.” The altar remains in
Ophrah in the land of the clan of Abiezer to this day.
Introduction
The book of
Judges reveals that
The
Moabites, Canaanities and the Philistines had all taken their turn.
Each time
in the depths of their despair they would remember to call out to God.
Each time
they would repent of their sins and failure to follow God.
And - In
their despair they would call on Him to rescue them and He did!
Yet each
time they once again would forget and return yet again to their sinful ways.
Now for
seven long years the Midianites, fierce and ruthless desert nomads, had raided
the land relentlessly.
Their
invasion was so massive and so overpowering that
Finally
They were
crying out to the Lord in pain and not in repentance.
For the
first time, God does not respond with a deliverer, instead He sent them a
prophet with a rebuke.
In verse
eleven we are introduced to Gideon:
Then the angel of the Lord came and
sat beneath the oak tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of
Abiezer. Gideon son of Joash had been threshing wheat at the bottom of a
winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites.
More space is devoted to the story of Gideon
in the book of Judges (100 verses) than to any other judge.
And Gideon
is the only judge whose personal struggles with his faith are recorded.
Gideon
stands as a testament to all those individuals who have a hard time believing
that God can make something out of them or do anything with them.
When we are
introduced to Gideon he does not seem to be much of a hero or an outstanding
man.
He is
threshing wheat in the winepress.
Gideon was afraid
of the Midianites.
Yes –
Gideon was afraid. Before we are too
hard on him, let me remind you that just about everyone God used in his word
had some kind of character flaw:
Noah was a
drunk
Abraham was
too old
Isaac was a
daydreamer
Jacob was a
liar
Leah was
ugly
Joseph was
abused
Moses had a
stuttering problem
Gideon was
afraid
Samson had
long hair and was a womanizer
Rahab was a
prostitute
Jeremiah
and Timothy were too young
David had
an affair and was a murderer
Elijah was
suicidal
Isaiah
preached naked
Jonah ran
from God
Naomi was a
widow
Job went
bankrupt
John the
Baptist ate bugs
Peter
denied Christ
The
Disciples fell asleep while praying
Martha
worried about everything
The
Samaritan woman was divorced, more than once
Zaccheus
was too small
Paul was
too religious
Timothy had
an ulcer...
AND
Lazarus was
dead!
What do you
have that’s worse than that?
If God used
them, He can use you.
Gideon’s
response to the heavenly visitor is fascinating because in the three questions
he raises we see Gideon’s personal spiritual struggles.
Perhaps
even more importantly these are three questions are the same questions that we
are still asking today.
Gideon’s First Question - "Does God
Really Care What Happens To Us?” (vv. 12-13)
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, 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
Gideon did not at first realize that
this visitation of "the Angel of the Lord” (v. 12) was in fact a direct
encounter with God himself.
This is
what theologians call a Christophany – when Christ temporarily appeared in
human form before his birth in
The heavenly messenger begins by saying,
"Mighty hero, the Lord is with you!”
In this
statement we see one of the great truths of Scripture…
When God
looks at us he does not see us for what we are, but for what we can become, as
He works in our lives!
Other people look at us and see our flaws and
failings; God looks at us and sees our possibilities. He comes to us in our
weakness with the promise of his presence that will transform our inadequacy
into His strength.
Gideon’s
response to this greeting was unbelief.
I’ve got to
tell you – Gideon is no wimp when it comes to dealing with God.
He wants answers
to his questions, the first one being:
If the Lord is with us, why has all
this happened to us?
Gideon has
brought up the age old theological complaint about the problem of evil;
"If God is all-powerful and all
good, why does he allow bad things to happen, especially to his own people?”
Gideon was
set up for a life of frustration, he was bitter with God for not coming through
for him!
Notice if
you would that the angel of the Lord did not say that the Lord was with
Frankly, He
was not with
The angel
said, "The Lord is with you”—singular—with you, Gideon. But Gideon cannot
believe that God would be with him.
He wants to
know where all those miracles are that their fathers had told them about.
He believed
that the Lord had forsaken
He was as
wrong as a man could be. The Lord had not really forsaken them; they had
forsaken the Lord.
This man is
in a bad state mentally and a bad state spiritually.
Actually,
he not only had an inferiority complex, he was skeptical, he was cynical, he
was weak, and he was cowardly.
That is
this man Gideon. But this was the man that God called.
There isn’t
a person here this morning that God cannot use if they are willing to let god
flow through their lives to touch another.
Gideon’s first question questions God’s
heart, his second question doubted God’s wisdom.
Gideon’s Second Question - "Does God
Know About My Limitations?” (vv. 14-15)
14 Then the Lord turned to him and
said, "Go with the strength you have and rescue
15 "But Lord,” Gideon replied, "how
can I rescue
Gideon, overwhelmed by the commission
given to him, did what so many do, he argued!
Like most
of us when we are given a job to do for the Lord, he began to dredge up a score
of excuses why it could not be done.
How many of
you have become good at excuses?
At first
all Gideon could see were the odds that were seemingly stated stacked against
him.
Gideon seemed to think that God could do
nothing because he and his family were nothing.
Gideon was
not a man of strong faith or courage and God had to patiently work with him to
prepare him for leadership.
God is
always ready to make us what we ought to be if we are willing to submit to His
will.
The real question is not Gideon’s adequacy or
inadequacy, but God’s wisdom and power.
God once
asked Abraham in Genesis 18:14, "Is anything too hard for the Lord?” The answer
of course is still the same, "Absolutely nothing!”
Gideon’s Third Question – "God How
Can I Know That You Are Really In This?” (vv. 16-24)
Listen
again to verses 16-19, and Gideon’s interesting method of confirming God’s
guidance in his life:
The Lord said to him, "I will be
with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against
one man.”
Gideon replied, "If you are truly
going to help me, show me a sign to prove that it is really the Lord speaking
to me.18 Don’t go away until I come back and bring my offering to you.”He
answered, "I will stay here until you return.”19 Gideon hurried home. He cooked
a young goat, and with a basket of flour he baked some bread without yeast.
Then, carrying the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot, he brought them out
and presented them to the angel, who was under the great tree.
The
question of discerning God’s will is an on going problem in Gideon’s life.
Gideon
wanted concrete confirmation that it was indeed God who was calling him into
action, so he therefore asked for a "sign” (v. 17).
The angel
affirmed that the presence of the Lord would be with him, and power to defeat
the Midianites (v. 16)
But this was not enough for Gideon - he wanted
a sign, some unmistakable proof that God would enable Gideon to carry out what
he considered an impossible mission.
The proof came when Gideon presented his
offering to the angelic visitor.
In verse
twenty-one we are told:
"Then the Angel of the Lord put out
the end of the staff that was in His hand, and touched the meat and the
unleavened bread; and fire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat and the
unleavened bread. And the Angel of the Lord departed out of his sight.”
In a dramatic fashion the angel of the
Lord extended his rod and touched the food Gideon had provided, in the blink of
an eye fire sprang from the rock and consumed the offering.
The angel
then vanished and left the terror stricken Gideon with the realization that he
had been talking with the Lord, and he exclaimed in verse twenty-two,
"…Alas, O Lord God! For I have seen
the Angel of the Lord face to face.”
Gideon
asked for a sign and then after he had received it he was sure that the God who
had granted it was now going to kill him.
But the
Lord reassured him in verse twenty-three, "Then the Lord said to him, "Peace be
with you; do not fear, you shall not die.”
The Lord however reassured Gideon who in
turn built an altar and called it Jehovah-Shalom or "the Lord is peace.”
Conclusion
What all of
this comes down to is that Gideon comes to realize that the power of his
potential is without limit because God’s faithfulness is without limit.
Folks – we
really need to get this.
When
chapter 6 opens, we find a scared Gideon threshing wheat, frightened to death
of the Midianites.
I am sure
in his wildest dreams Gideon never imagined that God would use little him to
deliver
But – as
God brought him to the place where he realized that his potential was directly
tied into God’s enablement, he was able to rest in that and as a result God used
Him mightly.
It all
begins with you and I coming to the same place that Gideon had to come.
When you
give God control of your future – and you tie your future into His faithfulness
– watch out!