Introduction:
Odds: 4-1
God's 2-Step Plan for Your Victory (Judges 7:1-15):
- Lose your Self-Confidence . (Judges 7:1-8)
Isaiah 42:8 - I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other...
God gave 2 tests to Gideon's already way-outnumbered army:
- Test #1: Are you Afraid ? (Judges 7:3)
Odds: 13-1
Duet 20:8 - And the officers shall speak further to the people, and say, Is there any man who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go back to his house, lest he make the heart of his fellows melt like his own.
- Test #2: Are you paying Attention . (Judges 7:7)
Odds: 450-1
- Put your confidence in God . (Judges 7:9-15)
1 Corinthians 10:12-13 - Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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Judges chapter 7.
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Many years ago I saw on the back of a book from a best-selling Christian author, this blurb.
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It says, "No matter where you are in life, you can be better." I saw that like, "I can be better! I can be better!" He goes on to say, "God is preparing you for greater things." And I'm like, "Hahaha." It says, "He's going to take you further than you thought possible." Yes!
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But then this next line made me stop in my tracks.
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It says, "So don't be surprised when he asks you to think better of yourself and act accordingly." I was like, "What? Think better of myself? Here's the problem. I don't know about you, but I already think too much of myself.
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God is not going to ask me and he's not going to ask you to think better of yourself. He's not.
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We're already there.
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And if you came to church for a pep talk this morning, you're going to leave sorely disappointed.
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Because I'm here to tell you on the authority of God's Word, listen to me, God is not out to build your self-confidence.
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He's not.
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God really doesn't care about your self-confidence.
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Do you know what God's out to do?
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He's out to build your God-confidence.
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That's what He's out to do.
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So we're not called to think or make more of ourselves.
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We're called to make less of ourselves so that God can be more.
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And it's a lesson we're going to see in the text today that Gideon learned, and hopefully when we leave here today, you and I can learn it too.
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So recall last week we started talking about Gideon.
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He was called to save Israel from the Midianites.
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And last week we talked about him laying out his fleece for confirmation and why that was a bad idea, and that message is available online.
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if you haven't heard it or you just want to hear it again.
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Well, when we get to the passage today, it's time for battle.
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Gideon and his army versus the Midianite army, but there's a problem with Gideon's army.
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The problem with Gideon's army is simply this.
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They were too big for God to use.
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What? His army was too big?
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Yeah. Now to put it in context here, we're going to see this in the text.
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You're like, "Well, how big was Gideon's army?" Well, listen closely here, don't get these numbers mixed up.
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The Midianite army, the Midianite, the enemy, the bad guys, the Midianite army was 135,000 fighting men.
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And at this point, Gideon's army was 32,000.
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Now I did the math ahead of time.
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But do you know what the odds are there?
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We put the odds up. We're going to keep track of this during the message.
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These are 4 to 1 odds.
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In other words, if you were in Gideon's army, that meant you had to take down 4 of the enemy just by yourself.
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Okay? 32,000 versus 135,000.
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You yourself had to take down 4.
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And by the way, every soldier on your side also had to take down 4 men of the enemy.
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How are those odds?
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Well, it would be like the peewee football team of your local elementary school taking on the Pittsburgh Steelers.
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Okay? Not great odds.
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But this is what Gideon was up against, and God was looking at their army and He's like, "Yeah, your army's way too big for Me to use." God says, "I don't like these odds, but not the way that you think." And I want you to think right now of an area in your life in which you're seeking the Lord for victory.
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I know there are some people here, some people watching at home, that need victory right now in their finances.
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Like, "I am upside down financially, and I don't see a way out." There are people here that need a victory over besetting sin.
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Like, "I have been struggling with this sin issue for years, and I can't seem to get a victory over it." Or maybe you have issues or obstacles in your workplace, that you're like, "Man, I need the Lord to win me a major victory here." Well, if that's you, if you recognize where you need a victory, today is going to be ultra-simple.
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I'm going to show you God's two-step plan for victory.
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I want to challenge you, there's no victory without following both steps in the right order.
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You ready? On your outline, here's God's two-step plan for victory, if you're taking notes.
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I'm just going to give them both to you right now. We're going to see it right in the text.
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God's two-step plan for your victory.
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Number one, you have to lose your self-confidence.
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That's number one.
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And number two, you have to put your confidence in God.
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First of all, lose your self-confidence.
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Let's look at the first eight verses in Judges 7.
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It says, "Then Jerubbabel," that is Gideon, that was a nickname that he got.
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It says, "And all the people who were with him rose early and encamped beside the spring of Herod.
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And the camp of Midian was north of them by the hill of Moreth in the valley.
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"The Lord said to Gideon, 'The people with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hand.'" What? Listen to the reasoning here.
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He says, "Lest Israel boast over Me, saying, 'My own hand has saved Me.' Now therefore proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, 'Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home, and hurry away from Mount Gilead.'" Look at this, "Then 22,000 of the people returned and 10,000 people remained.
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And the Lord said to Gideon, 'The people are still too many.
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Take them down to the water and I will test them for you there.
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And anyone of whom I say to you, "This one shall go with you," shall go with you.
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And anyone of whom I say to you, "This one shall not go with you," shall not go.
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So he brought the people down to the water.
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And the Lord said to Gideon, "Everyone who laps the water with his tongue as a dog laps, you shall set by himself.
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Likewise, everyone who kneels down to drink." Okay, so here's the picture.
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God's like, "Take him down for a drink." And it's the people that the water up and drink it out of their hand, lapping it up like a dog versus the people that get on hands and knees and basically bury their face in the water, all right?
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It says, "And the number of those who lapped, putting their hands to their mouths was 300 men.
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But all the rest of the people knelt down to drink water.
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The Lord said to Gideon, with the 300 men who leapt, I will save you and give the Midianites into your hand and let all the others go, every man to his home.
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So the people took provisions in their hands and their trumpets, and he sent all the rest of Israel, every man to his tent, but retained the 300 men.
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And the camp of Midian was below him in the valley.
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Okay, number one, lose your self-confidence.
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Now between Gideon's army and the Midianites was this valley.
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And you have to try to put yourself in Gideon's place here because what he would have seen would have been terrifying.
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We're gonna get to this in verse 12.
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But verse 12 tells us that the Midianite army looked like locusts, looked like, and on all their camels and all their, it said that it was like sand on the seashore.
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That's what it looked like to Midian.
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And I already told you at this point, at the beginning of the story, it was a four to one.
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And God says, "Your army's too big, Gideon." I wanna tell you today that God is not as concerned about how to win a victory as He is with teaching us how to trust Him.
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And you will never, you will never trust God.
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I mean, fully trust God.
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You will never do it if you have confidence in yourself.
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And this is what Gideon needed to learn.
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And this is what you and I need to learn, church, that if our victory in our lives, whatever your battle is, if it's won by self-reliance, that's ultimately disastrous.
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If you win all your battles by your own strength, that's ultimately disastrous because you begin to take credit and praise for that.
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Right?
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Those of you who were here last week, do you remember that sermon I gave last week?
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Do you remember that sermon last week?
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That was a really good sermon, wasn't it?
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I mean, I'm a great preacher.
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And I look at the people that get saved and I say, "Lord, did you see those people that I saved?
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"Lord, do you see these people?
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"Lord, I changed their lives.
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"And like, frankly, God, you're lucky to have me." That's a major problem.
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I don't really believe those things.
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In fact, you saw in July, guest speaker month, we have another amazing guest speaker next week.
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I am the most replaceable person in this church, and that's okay.
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But you see, it's a major problem when we adopt that mindset of, "Look what I did. Look who I saved. Look what I'm doing.
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Look at me. Look at me. Just look at how awesome I am." And that has caused so many preachers to crash and burn because they think that they did the job, and they deserve the glory.
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and that has put them on a higher plane than other people, which it has not, but it has caused so many preachers to crash and burn.
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What about you?
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Like, well, I'm not a preacher.
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Yeah, but you can serve in this church in whatever capacity, whether it's with kids or up here leading worship or in the AV booth or with the youth group or whatever you do.
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And you can sit back and you say, "You know what, Pastor Jeff, sure is lucky to have me at this church.
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And what would Harvest Bible Chapel be without me?" And you know what?
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It's about time I start getting the recognition I deserve in this church.
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People actually say those things.
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And I just want to remind myself and I want to remind you of a verse that should stop us dead in our tracks when we start to walk down that trail.
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And here's the verse, all right?
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Isaiah 42.8, "I am the Lord, that is my name." Look at this next phrase.
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He says, "My glory I give to no other." Church, God loves you.
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He loves you with an infinite love, but there is absolutely one thing that God will not do for you, and that is allow you to receive the praise that He deserves.
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He's not going to share that with you.
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He's not going to let you get credit.
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He's not going to let people start looking to you for the things that only He can give.
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He's not going to do that, because that's ultimately destructive.
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And church, I want to tell you, whoever you are, wherever you've been, whatever you've done, you can't be too small for God to use. If you're feeling insignificant, you can't be too small for God to use, but you can be too big for God to use. Just like Gideon's army. So just to make sure that Gideon wasn't going into this battle with any self-confidence, God did two things to reduce his army. I just want to review those quickly. He gave him two tests. Two tests that Gideon's already way outnumbered army, and test number one, are you afraid? We saw that in verse 3. God promises his presence and his power, but despite that, some people are still too afraid. We talked about that with Beric and Deborah. If you're battling with fear, I'd like to remind you that fear focuses on the problem, not on God. All right? Only one thing can take center stage in your heart. Either God or the focus of your fear, and whichever one you allow center stage is going to get your attention. That's why you're afraid. That fear thing is, you're giving it too much attention instead of giving it to the Lord. And we saw that if you're fearful, God's not going to force you into battle. He says, "Hey, tell the scaredy cats to go home." Why? Well, I'll just jot this reference down. You can look up later. Deuteronomy chapter 20 and verse 8, God told the Israelites, this is so counterintuitive. When we see somebody afraid, we're like, "Hey, buck up, pal!
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You're going to war!" God's different. He goes, "You scared? Go home.
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Just go home." Why? Here's the thing, fear is contagious. That's why. And the Lord says that fear is contagious. God's like, "If you're scared, I don't want you walking around to the other soldiers, 'I don't know if we can win this because we're outnumbered.'" Because now the other soldiers are like, "Well, you know what?
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He's got a point, we kind of are outnumbered.
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I'm not sure if this is gonna work.
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And now all of a sudden that's spreading.
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He goes, no, no, no, I don't want that to spread.
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So get them out of here.
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So that's what the Lord did here.
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Wait a minute, I had a joke in here about fear being more contagious than COVID.
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Is it too late for that?
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Too soon?
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All right, hang on.
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Maybe a future retelling of this.
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All right, anyways, imagine how Gideon felt.
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Okay, he's already numbered four to one.
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God's like, your army's too big, to tell the scared people to go home.
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I think Gideon might have been thinking, well, I probably have like six or seven that are scared.
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22,000!
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That's like more than half the army.
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Could you imagine?
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More than half the army is like, oh, you mean we can go home if we don't want to fight?
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That's too little.
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Gideon, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
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That left Gideon with 10,000.
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Now what are the odds?
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The odds now with 10,000 people left are 13 to one.
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Again, to put it into perspective, if you're a soldier in Gideon's army, that means you are responsible, you and every soldier on your side are responsible for taking down 13 Midianites.
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Actually, it's like 13 and a half, so you can round up to 14.
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So just imagine yourself in battle.
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I get to take down 14 of the enemy just by myself, me and everybody else on my side.
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And the Lord shows up and says, "Okay, Gideon, we got a problem.
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"13 to one's not good odds." He says that's still too many people.
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So test number two.
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Okay, test one, are you afraid?
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Test number two, are you paying attention?
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Test number two, you saw that in the passage where God says, "Watch how they drink." Okay?
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And the people that lapped up like a dog brought their hand to their mouth and lapped up like, he goes, "Yeah, just keep them." And there were only 300 people drinking that way.
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Now, God's word gives us all the details that we need to know.
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But have you ever been reading the Bible and just been wondering about some details that God didn't tell you?
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Because when I get to this passage, here's something that I've always wondered.
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How did that discharge speech go?
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When Gideon gives up to the soldiers and he's like, "Hey, this was after they drank and they drank their..." How did Gideon go up to the ones that God was sending home?
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He's like, "Hey, yeah, look..." This is a hard conversation to have.
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I know we're even more outnumbered than we were, but you see, God didn't like the way that you drank the water, so God said that you're supposed to go home, pack up, you're done.
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Like, what?
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Here's the thing with this test.
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None of them knew that they were being tested.
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God was seeing who was being watchful, you know, drinking with their hand, looking up, keeping an eye on the enemy, and who was oblivious, face down in the water.
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But even the method isn't the point of the test. Here's the point of the test.
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God gives us tests when we are unaware. Did you know that?
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God rarely shows up and says, "Hey, I'm about to test you. Get ready." Usually the Lord is testing us when we don't know that we're being tested.
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That's how His tests work. Many, many years ago at my old church, We had this family that had this teenage son who's well into adulthood by now.
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But this teenage son kept getting into trouble.
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This is an absolutely true story.
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This teenage son kept getting into trouble.
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And I remember I'd go to a local juvenile home where he was incarcerated for a while because he couldn't stop getting into trouble.
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And I remember sitting down with him where he would just cry, "Oh, I just missed my mom." And every time I was with this kid, he came across as just the sweetest boy.
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And I go and talk to his mom, who was a member of our church, and she's like, "Oh, Pastor Jeff, he's such a good boy. He's always the victim.
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You know, the poor boy is always the victim.
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Every time kids get in trouble, he's the one that takes the fall.
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And he's never doing anything wrong. He's so sweet." and it's, "My little cherub, my little Angel Cakes baby cherub, he's so good." It's just a shame that he's always the victim of circumstance.
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And well, one day I was going into the Freedman's, the grocery store downtown Butler, back when that was still open, remember Freedman's?
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And I was walking in and I heard this commotion.
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And I turned around and right there across the street, I saw him, his back was to me, but he didn't see me, this kid, you know, this innocent kid that was never the cause of any problem.
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This white car drove by and he smacked the hood and I'm not gonna repeat everything, but he made an extremely rude gesture and shouted some really horrific profanities at this car in a, I'm trying to, I should have thought about this beforehand.
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It was like a, "Hey, bring it on, pal. Let's fight," kind of thing, but he said it in like the most nasty way possible.
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He didn't know I was standing right behind him.
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All right?
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And this is the kid that for months, all I've heard is what a precious angel cherub he is.
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And I'm watching all of this take place.
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And I just got to tell you, this is one of the perks of being a pastor, was the look on the kid's face when he turned around and saw me.
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Oh, it was priceless. Because he was doing his thing, he's like, "Aaargh!" And then he turns around and he looks right at me, he's like, "Pastor Jeff, how are you doing?" And he knows that I knew.
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But you see, that's the point.
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When you know you're being tested, when you know you're being watched, you can force yourself to talk and act in a certain way.
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But the question is, how do you act when you think no one is watching?
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You see, that was the test that this kid failed, and that was the test that God gave Gideon's army, because it's those moments that reveal who we really are.
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Anyways, this test reduced Gideon's army to 300 people.
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Okay?
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It started with 32,000, sent the scared home down to 10,000.
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So if you're keeping track, what are the odds now?
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It's 450, that's actually 450 to one.
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So forgive my typo there.
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450 to one.
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So again, put yourself in Gideon's army.
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Do I get to paint this picture for you again?
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When you started, you had to take down four.
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Then you had to take down 13.
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What are your chances of taking down 450 people?
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What are your chances?
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I would say it's impossible.
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In your own strength, it is impossible.
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You cannot beat 450 people, No matter how big or bad or strong or trained you are, you are not taking down 450 people by yourself.
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That's step one.
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All self-confidence must be stripped away, but that doesn't bring the victory by itself.
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You've got to go to step two.
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Very simply, lose your self-confidence, but put your confidence in God.
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Look at verses 9 through 15.
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It says, "That same night the Lord said to him, said to Gideon, 'Arise, go down against for I have given it into your hand.
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But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Purah your servant, and you shall hear what they say, and afterward your hand shall be strengthened to go down against the camp.' Then he went down with Purah his servant to the outpost of the armed men who were in the camp, and the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the people of the east lay along the valley like locusts in abundance, and their camels were without number as the sand that is in the seashore in abundance. When Gideon came, behold, a man was telling a dream to his comrade. And he said, 'Behold, I dreamed a dream, and behold, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian, and it came to the tent and struck it so that it fell, and turned it upside down so that the tent lay flat.'" Like, that's a weird dream.
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"And his comrade answered, 'This is no other than the sword of Gideon, the son of "Joash, the man of Israel, God has given into his hand Midian and all the camp." As soon as Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he worshipped.
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And he returned to the camp of Israel and said, "Arise, for the Lord has given the host of Midian into your hand." Stop there.
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Okay, so you have to think that night Gideon probably didn't sleep that well.
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You probably wouldn't either if at the beginning of the day you had 32,000 people people, and at the end of the day, you had 300. And then the Lord shows up again. And Gideon was probably like, "Pfft, now what? Let me get it. 300's too many, Lord? You have like five kindergartners you're going to send to battle? Like, what is it here?" But God gave the command to attack, but first He gave Gideon some more grace, a courage builder. He said, "Take Purah," which was his servant, "and go spy." And there was that that dream, you're like, "What's that dream about?" Well, the barley cake was a picture of Israel.
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Understand the picture here, barley was like poor man's food.
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Barley was what you fed the livestock.
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And it was a picture of being forced to poverty.
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Because we saw last week that that was how Midianites were attacking Israel.
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They were just taking all their crops, all their animals, they were just taking all of their resources.
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So Israel was destitute.
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So this barley cake was a picture of Israel, and the tent obviously referring to the Midianites.
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So they were sent down to overhear this dream.
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And here's the point.
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When Gideon heard this dream, he realized...
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Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on a second.
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It's not 135,000 Midianites versus 300 Gideonites.
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In that moment he realized it's 135,000 versus God.
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That's the point, you see, God put fear in the Midianites' hearts.
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And he wanted to show Gideon that he was already winning the battle before the battle even started.
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Church, I want to tell you, when God calls you to battle, He is not going to give you the pep talk.
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He's not going to boost your self-confidence.
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What God's going to do, ironically enough, when He calls you to battle, is He's going to rip away all of the self-confidence that you have.
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God is going to leave you bankrupt, He's going to leave you unarmed, and He's going to leave you vulnerable, and He's going to teach you that you have no other choice but to trust Him.
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He's going to teach you that He and He alone is your only option.
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And by the way, that's how it is with the cross of Jesus Christ, isn't it?
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That is how you're saved.
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It wasn't as if Jesus died on the cross and said, "Okay, I did my part for your salvation, now here are the things that you have to do in order to be saved." Jesus Christ accomplished it all.
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He paid for your sin in full when He died on the cross.
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And He's not saying, "Now here's what you have to do, here's your checklist, here's what you bring to the table." The only thing He calls you to do now is to come and say, "I realize I am totally dependent upon you.
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I need you 100% Lord.
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That's what God did for Gideon by His grace.
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Church sometimes that's what He does to us.
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And right now if you're going through a season of hurt or disappointment or loss, I want you to think about this story and say maybe this is God's way of ripping away any self-confidence that I have so that I can trust Him deeper, because then I'm going to see God do something that only God can do, and there is nothing more glorious than that.
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The battle, I'm not going to...
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I'm just going to give you the overview of the battle.
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You can go home and read this.
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Like, how did that battle go?
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Verses 19 through 25.
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Here's what the Lord did through Gideon.
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Divide the 300 into three groups of 100.
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And He gave them trumpets, and He gave them jars with torches in them.
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And I imagine there were probably some of the soldiers that were like, "Can I have a weapon?" Right? "We're taking on an army, we're outnumbered 450 to 1.
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How about something more than a trumpet and a jar?" God's like, "No, this is what you're using." Well, they separated into three groups of a hundred.
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And Gideon and his army, they blew the trumpets, they smashed the jars, they held up the torches, and the Midianites completely freaked out.
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They panicked, they were already scared.
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But when this happened, and they heard the noise and they saw the torches, they just panicked, and they started attacking each other and fleeing, and more Israelites jumped in and pursued, and they beheaded the princes, Oreb and Zeb.
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Never had a baby dedication with an Oreb or a Zeb.
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But those were the Midianite princes.
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But that's a sermon for another time.
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So as we come to the end of this, I have to ask myself as a pastor, and you have to ask yourself, church, what did Gideon learn that he would commend to us?
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If we had Gideon right here today, say, "Gideon, what did you learn from all of that?" He'd give you a three-word sermon.
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He'd say, "Here's what I learned. Less is more." Less is more!
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You're like, "Well, Pastor Jeff, you've obviously never adopted that philosophy in your sermons." "Hey, look, I'm a work in progress just like you. Less is more." And when you understand that that's how God's math works, you start to see it in other places in the Bible, don't you?
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For example, Jesus had 5,000 men plus women and children.
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How did He choose to feed them?
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Jesus said, "I know. I'm going to open up a Costco right here, and I'm just going to tell them to form an orderly line, and they can get all the provisions." Is that how Jesus chose to do it?
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He said, "No, I'll take the little boy's lunch." Why did God choose to do that?
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So that people would know.
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You remember, Jesus ascended into heaven and He left the work of the ministry to spread the gospel and change the world to how many disciples?
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There were 11.
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And then you get to the book of Acts, there's just 120 people.
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There's a group like this size that God used to change the world.
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Why?
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So that people would know.
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And when Gideon went to battle, 135,000, God took his army from 32,000 to 10,000 to 300.
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Why? So that people would know. So that people would know what?
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That when it's put in God's hands, less is more. Less is more.
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I want to close looking at 1 Corinthians 10.
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It says, "Therefore let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.
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"No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man." Look at this next phrase very closely.
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It says, "God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.
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But with the temptation, He will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it." You know, this is one of the most misquoted verses in the Bible.
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How is this misquoted? People say this all the time.
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You know, the Bible says God doesn't give you more problems than you can handle.
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You're having a rough day, things are going hard in your life.
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And that's the word of encouragement people give you.
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They say, "Well, God doesn't give you more than you can handle." And they base that off of this.
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And the implication here is, "Hey, you're having a hard time, you're going through some stuff.
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Hey, I'm here to encourage you that you can handle this.
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You can handle this because God's not going to give you more than you can handle.
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So whatever you have, God assumes that you can handle." That is not what that passage is saying at all.
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The context of this passage is clear.
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He's talking about temptation.
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He's saying God won't ever allow you to be in a situation where you are tempted and you have to sin.
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You're like, "I'm in a corner. I have no choice.
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I'm going to have to sin." He's saying God always provides an escape route.
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You're never forced to sin.
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That's what he's talking about.
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But the way that this is misquoted is actually completely opposite of the truth.
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God's not going to give you more problems than you can handle.
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God won't give you more than you can handle.
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And I'm here to tell you this morning, yes, He will.
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I'm here to tell you that absolutely, for sure, 100%, God is going to give you way more than you can handle.
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Here's why.
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I want you to imagine in your life, if you only get the amount of problems that you're able to handle. Let's assume that the way this is misquoted is true. Let's just pretend for a second. The only problems you get are the problems that you're able to handle. Do you know what that means? That means that you're going to navigate through life, taking care of your problems, and eventually you're going to get to the point that you're going to say, "You know, I really don't need God for anything. I've been able to handle all these messes that I've had, I've handled them just fine. What do I need God for?" But to His glory, God will give you way more than you can handle so that we can be put in the same position that Gideon was in. So that we learn daily, "Lord, Lord, I need you. Lord, I can't do this without you." So church, when the enemy looks too powerful, when the battle looks unwinnable, and you realize that your resources are depleted, and your resources seem completely inadequate.
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You just need to put that all in God's hands.
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And like Gideon, you're going to discover less is more.
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Pray with me, please.
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Father in heaven, we thank you for this amazing account from your Word.
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God, I pray right now for myself, and for my brothers and sisters here, that like Gideon, Father, I pray that you would destroy our self-confidence.
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Because Father, we know the reality is the only people who aren't in heaven are the people who thought they didn't need you.
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The people who think that they can navigate through life and manage in their own strength and never need to call upon the Lord or see your hand move or watch you do what only you can do.
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Father, rip away our resources.
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Father, take our army down from thousands to hundreds and bring us to the place that we cry out, "Lord, I need You." Give us the faith that we need to fully embrace everything that You provided in Jesus Christ.
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It's in His name that we pray. Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read Judges 7:1-15
What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
Why did God reduce Gideon’s army? Why do you think He did it in stages (32k to 10k to 300) instead of just doing it all at once?
Isaiah 42:8 says “I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other…” (See also Isaiah 48:11) How would you respond to someone who says, “Isn’t it egotistical of God to demand all the glory?”
In Judges 7:9-14, why did God let Gideon spy “if he was afraid” (Judges 7:10)? Since Gideon was obviously still afraid (made clear by Gideon taking God up on His offer), why didn’t Gideon get sent home with all of the other fearful soldiers earlier (Judges 7:3)?
Breakout
Pray for one another, specifically that God would remove all self-confidence and teach us to find all of our confidence in Him!