Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Welcome to the Chroma Charge podcast.
[00:00:06] Thank you, guys. Just give me a moment whilst I get myself all set up. How are you guys all doing?
[00:00:12] Good. So, like Rach said, my name is Simon. This is going to come in handy later. I've been coming to Coma now. We were figuring out 13 years I've been here and whilst I was here, I met my wife 10 years ago. Nearly. Nearly. Been married for 10 years now. Nearly.
[00:00:30] So, guys, if you're here and you're looking for a wife, you're in a good place.
[00:00:35] And girls, if you're here and you're looking for a husband, you're in a good place.
[00:00:41] We've got two wonderful children, Micah and Levi. They're both here tonight. Micah is seven and Levi is three. I'm actually a primary school teacher by trade, that's my job.
[00:00:50] But last weekend I was here and at the conference. How many of you were here at the conference last weekend? Yeah, a few of you.
[00:00:57] I was asked if I would be on the security team last weekend and I can already hear some of the chuckles in the room because some of you are looking at me and going, simon, if the wind blew in the wrong direction, you'd snap in half. And I would agree with you. That is correct. So I was making this joke that I would offer spiritual protection rather than physical protection. And we'll just run with that in case next time I get asked, just know the Lord is with me, but not the muscle anyway.
[00:01:24] So I don't know if you remember at school, when you were at school, whenever you did PE or you played a game or sports, you'd always have this time where you picked teams, you had two captains and they picked the different people. And depending on your sporting ability, you might have good memories of that or bad memories of that. I like to think of myself generally as quite a sporty person.
[00:01:46] That there is one sport which I'm awful at and it just so happens to be the most popular sport in the uk, which is football.
[00:01:53] Now, whenever they were picking teams, people would know, he's rubbish at football. So I would get picked last every time. And we're talking like, there's me and the caretaker's dog and you're picking the caretaker's dog over me, kind of level of bad.
[00:02:08] But there was one game that I played where I played unbelievably well and everyone was coming up to me afterwards like, I can't believe you played so well. You're meant to be rubbish at football. Where did you learn all of that. But I had a secret weapon, because in that game, I just so happened to be playing alongside someone who was part of the Northampton Town Football Academy. And so every single time I moved, he would go, no, don't do that. Go there, go there, go there, go there, go there.
[00:02:41] I would just follow whatever he told me to do. Go to the left. Okay, I'm going to the left. Go to the right. Okay, I'm going to the right. Scratch your nose. Okay, I'm scratching my nose. Whatever it might be, whatever he told me to do, I was doing it.
[00:02:52] The reason why I play well that game was because there was somebody who actually knew what they were doing, giving me the instructions of how I was supposed to play.
[00:03:02] And so today I want to speak to you about a character from the Bible who had a pretty similar experience to me playing football, but on a far, far greater and more important scale.
[00:03:13] This is someone who thought of himself as the lowest of the low.
[00:03:17] He believed he wasn't qualified to be used by God, but God chose him anyway.
[00:03:24] I'm talking about man called Gideon.
[00:03:28] Now, the story of Gideon is found in the book of Judges, chapter six through to chapter eight. And we're going to be reading from just a little part of that this evening. But I want to set a little bit of context for you.
[00:03:38] So Judges starts with the death of Joshua, who is a very brilliant leader who took the Israelites into the promised Land after the death of Moses. And at this point, Israel doesn't have an earthly king. God is to be their king, and they are to follow his law.
[00:03:54] But as the Israelites enter into the promised land, they begin to turn away from God. They begin to disobey his law. They begin to worship the false gods of the Canaanite people who are in the land. And rather than leaving them to their own devices, God, like any loving father, disciplines his children.
[00:04:16] He withdraws his hand of protection. He withdraws his blessing from them to draw them back to him.
[00:04:23] And the Israelites, they cry out to God, they say, help us, Lord. And he raises up these judges, these leaders to deliver his people.
[00:04:32] And this, however, becomes a bit of a cycle. Israel disobeys.
[00:04:38] God disciplines. Israel cries out.
[00:04:41] The people repent. Israel disobeys. God disciplines. The people cry out.
[00:04:47] God delivers them. And one of these judges in this cycle is Gideon. The Israelites have turned away from God again. And as a result, the Midianites, one of the surrounding people groups, begin to oppress them. And for seven years, the Midianites raid Israel and take and destroy all of the Israelite crops and livestock, so they begin to starve. And we're going to pick up the story in Judges, chapter 6, verse 11. I'm going to find it in my rather sizable Bible, which is fantastic. Okay, here we go.
[00:05:24] Now, the angel of the Lord came and sat under the tabernith at Ophrah, which is a type of tree and which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites.
[00:05:37] And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, the Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.
[00:05:45] Gideon said to him, please, my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our Father recounted to us, saying, did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt, but now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hands of Midian.
[00:06:03] The Lord turned to him and said, go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hands of Midian, do I not send you?
[00:06:10] But Gideon said to him, please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.
[00:06:19] And the Lord said to him, but I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.
[00:06:29] We're going to come back to this story a little bit more later on, but the first thing that I think we can learn from the story of Gideon is this, that it is God who qualifies you so that you can be used by Him.
[00:06:42] Now, I wonder what you would look for in a powerful leader, a leader who's going to liberate this nation from the enemy. Perhaps you'd look for someone who's a great orator, fantastic with their words, wise and persuasive. Maybe you'd look for someone who was brave and bold and had no fear, Someone who was confident in themselves, thought highly of themselves.
[00:07:06] So when God is looking for a fifth judge of Israel, it's amazing that he chooses Gideon.
[00:07:15] See, when we find Gideon, he's threshing out wheat in a wine press. Now, we today are like, what is threshing wheat? Basically, the idea is that you would whip the wheat to get rid of all of the rubbish off it. So you're left with the good stuff. The whole thing is that this requires a lot of space to do it. It's supposed to be done outside, in this massive space. But Gideon is in this Tiny little place underground in our winepress doing this.
[00:07:41] He's fearful, he's afraid. He's terrified that the Midianites are going to come and take his food off him.
[00:07:49] But God chooses him to deliver his people. In fact, he calls him mighty man of valor, a mighty warrior, which is the opposite of what Gideon is when we first meet him.
[00:08:06] See, God gives Gideon a title which is not who he was at that moment, but it was who he was going to be. When he trusted and was obedient to who God had called him to be.
[00:08:19] He was speaking the future over Gideon's life.
[00:08:23] What was going to make him this mighty warrior, though, was not his own strength or his own skill set.
[00:08:29] It was God with him.
[00:08:32] Gideon didn't have much going for him, but he didn't need to.
[00:08:36] God was going to be with him. His qualification was not based on his own ability, but on God's presence with him.
[00:08:47] This is the same for us, guys. You might not think that you have much going for you.
[00:08:52] You might not think that you're the smartest, the bravest.
[00:08:55] You might not think you're the best speaker. You might. You might not be the most influential, whatever it might be. But that isn't what qualifies you to be used by God.
[00:09:03] What qualifies you is the humility to admit that I am weak and I need his power and his presence in my life.
[00:09:15] Paul says, In 1 Corinthians 12, God said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
[00:09:25] Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness so that Christ's power may rest on me. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
[00:09:36] See, it's when we're weak that we have to depend on God for Him to come through. And God says that it's through our weakness that his power is made perfect, not in our strengths.
[00:09:48] See, if dependence on God is the objective for our life, then our weakness is actually an advantage for us.
[00:09:57] See, the more I realize that I can do nothing without him, the more I lean into him, the more his power can be shown through my life.
[00:10:07] Sometimes it's actually our strengths that are more dangerous to us than our weaknesses because we get in our head this delusion that we are strong enough without God, we can start to do things in our own strength, when actually it's when we admit that we are weak and we need him, that his power can be demonstrated through us.
[00:10:28] See, it's our admission and humility that we cannot do anything for God. We cannot do anything of eternal value without him with us. That enables us to be fully used by Him.
[00:10:41] Actually, before the talk, I asked the guys if they could have this picture of the stained glass window behind me. And. And all week I've had this picture of a stained glass window going through my head and stained glass windows. I remember when I was a kid, my parents used to love taking me to churches with stained glass windows in them. And I used to think they were so boring. They were so boring. Oh, it's just a stained glass window. It's so dull. But actually, there was this moment whenever we were there where suddenly the sun would perfectly line up with the stained glass window behind it. And you'd get this beauty that came through the window.
[00:11:15] All the light would scatter across the floor, and the whole place was lit up. And it's like, wow, this is amazing.
[00:11:21] This is like our life. We are the stained glass window in and of ourselves. We can't do anything. But when the glory of God shines through us, suddenly this beauty, the majesty, the kingdom of God is all over the place around us. It's as God shines through, through us that we're able to impact the world around us.
[00:11:43] See, God chooses the unqualified so his power can be displayed and so he can get the glory. He makes us qualified through the power of the Holy Spirit. So we stay humble before God and we let his power be displayed through our weakness as he is with us.
[00:12:04] Maybe I wasn't so bad a choice for security after all.
[00:12:08] Weakness. In our weakness, we are made strong.
[00:12:14] Once Gideon recognizes that God has called him, God immediately calls him into action.
[00:12:20] But his first job is not to gather an army.
[00:12:24] It's not even to fight a battle.
[00:12:27] It's to deal with the idols in his own back garden.
[00:12:33] See, in his back garden, Gideon's father has put up a big altar to BAAL and to Asherah, which all the people come and they worship at. And that very same night, the Lord has appeared to Gideon. God speaks to him and says, go and smash up your father's idols and build one to me instead.
[00:12:53] And this is all about trust.
[00:12:58] See, BAAL was the God, inverted commas, little G of the harvest in Canaan. And Asherah was the goddess of fertility. So for the Israelites, what are the two things that they needed the most in this moment?
[00:13:12] Food and children. An army to defeat the Midianites.
[00:13:17] So they continued to worship these two Canaanite gods, all the more not realizing that. But it was their worship of the Canaanite gods which had got them into this mess in the first place.
[00:13:29] So God's first instruction is this, Cut them down and trust in me.
[00:13:37] And Gideon does it. That night, the people are furious. They want him dead. And Gideon's father's like, well, you know, if BAAL is all that powerful, as you guys say he is, then BAAL will sort him out himself. So I'm not going to kill him. You let BAAL deal with it. The people calm down. But this week I felt the Lord really just show this to me.
[00:13:58] Where do we put our trust?
[00:14:02] It's easy to look at the Israelites and go, they're so foolish. I can't believe they trust an idol. I mean, where's baal? We don't want to worship Baals. That is so ridiculous.
[00:14:13] But do we always put our trust in God? In every situation, we may not worship BAAL or Asherah, but an idol is merely anything that we elevate above God, anything we prioritize or trust in more than Him.
[00:14:29] Even things that are good can become idols if we elevate them to a higher standard than God.
[00:14:36] So can I ask gently, are there any idols in your life?
[00:14:43] Are there any things which you prioritize over God that you trust in over Him?
[00:14:52] Now, maybe it's pleasure in life when things get hard, do we choose in that moment to press more into God, to see things from a heavenly perspective? Or do we bury ourselves in our phone or video games or alcohol to numb the pain and escape from the reality of life?
[00:15:12] Do we trust God or do we trust the things of the world?
[00:15:17] Maybe it's money.
[00:15:19] And when money is tight and you have to pay the bills, what do you do?
[00:15:23] Do you stop giving to God, or do you trust him to provide?
[00:15:29] Steve, absolutely brilliant talk this morning on this. I'd encourage you, if you haven't heard it, go back and watch it now. When a job offer comes up with a significant pay rise, but at a place where you know it's going to impact your relationship with God, it's going to work longer hours, it's going to take you away from your family, there's going to be a lack of accountability, it's going to damage your walk with God. Do you take the job simply because it's more money, or do you actually remain in a place where you know God is calling you to be, even though it's got a lower salary?
[00:15:57] Do you make your financial decisions based on the standards and principles of the world or the standards and principles of God?
[00:16:05] Because the World says, when things are tight, don't give, save, save, save. Everything is yours.
[00:16:11] God says, this is Proverbs 11. One person gives freely, yet gains even more. Another withholds unduly but comes to poverty. A generous person will prosper. Whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.
[00:16:25] Which priority do we go for?
[00:16:29] God's principles or the world's principles?
[00:16:34] When I was a student here, there was a moment where my accommodation had gone out. My accommodation money had gone out and my student loan had yet to come in. So I was very tight on money and I sat, well, stood in a church service and I had £20 in my wallet to pay for my food for the week. And as the buckets came round, the Lord said, Simon, put your £20 in the bucket.
[00:16:55] And after, we'll call it a little discussion with God, which is basically me going, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, fine.
[00:17:03] I put my money in the bucket.
[00:17:05] I had no idea how I was going to eat that week, but the Lord had told me, put it in. So I did.
[00:17:12] And after church, some of the guys went out for lunch and said. I said, I can't go out. I've got any money. Someone. Oh, no, it's fine. I'll pay for you. I'll pay for your. Pay for your food. That's great. Fantastic. I got home that night, one of my flatmates had made me food. They'd never done that before. Monday went to uni, someone bought lunch for me. Monday evening, came here to an event, there was pizza there. Tuesday morning, I go to uni, someone's bought me breakfast, somebody buys me food. Tuesday evening, I come back here and there's more pizza. Not the most healthy thing in the world, but more pizza. I was like, this is great. I got home that Tuesday night and I opened a book that a couple had given me from the church back home where I'm from, in Bedford, to go away for uni. And I'd opened this book multiple times, 3, 4, 5 times over the time that I'd been there. And this time I opened this book and there was an envelope in there, and inside the envelope was £250.
[00:18:01] Now, I'm not saying that I gave £20 and God gave me 250 back, but what I am saying is this. I was obedient to God and he blessed me.
[00:18:13] God's principles defy the world's.
[00:18:17] So whose principles do you trust, God's or the world's?
[00:18:26] What about the idol of comfort?
[00:18:29] God's nailed me on this one. This Week.
[00:18:32] Nailed me on it.
[00:18:34] Are the decisions you make in your life centered and focused around laying your whole life down to bring glory to Jesus?
[00:18:45] Or are they centered around creating this middle class dream of being homeowners with little responsibilities, retired by 60 and life on the beach?
[00:18:58] Which is it?
[00:19:01] Which is it?
[00:19:03] Jesus says in Matthew 16, whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.
[00:19:12] Are you willing to destroy the idol of comfort in order to walk in the fullness of life that God has for you?
[00:19:20] See, Gideon puts his trust in God and destroys the idols, and it starts him walking in God's destiny that he has for him, but it also starts the nation turning back to God.
[00:19:33] Now, as the people turned back to God, the battle against the Midianites was actually already won.
[00:19:39] See, if Gideon had gone to fight the Midianites before this, before the idols had been dealt with, he would have been destroyed. Because the issue was not the Midianites. The issue was who the Israelites were putting their trust in.
[00:19:51] The battle that needed to be won first was this. Who do you trust, BAAL or God?
[00:19:58] And Gideon didn't know it yet, but as this spiritual battle was won, so was the physical one.
[00:20:04] Fighting with the flesh guys will only at best win you fleshly battles, but when you fight in the spirit, you win battles in both the flesh and the Spirit.
[00:20:14] See, our issue when fear holds us back in the things that God has called us to do is not our self confidence, but it's actually how much we trust Him.
[00:20:22] Do we trust that he is with us? Because if God is with us, then he's for us, and if he's for us, nothing can be against us.
[00:20:29] Psalm 27 says, Some trust in chariots, some trust in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
[00:20:37] Who do we trust in ourselves and the idols, or do we trust in God?
[00:20:42] So are you ready to tear down the idols in your life and to trust God too?
[00:20:48] The battles that you fight and the idols you tear down are not just for you, but they're also for your family. If you want your children to walk in everything that God has for them, show them a life fully surrendered to Jesus.
[00:21:04] God doesn't expect you to have perfect faith, but he does want your total trust.
[00:21:10] When we humbly obey him and we step out for Him, God brings His blessing and his power.
[00:21:16] So are you ready to see the breakthrough that God, God wants to bring as we trust him and fight in the Spirit?
[00:21:27] Even after this, though, Gideon's Faith isn't perfect, he doubts. And he asks for God for two signs. A dry fleece on a wet ground and a wet fleece on a dry ground.
[00:21:36] I still can't quite get my head around this, because he literally saw Jesus telling him to go, and then he's like, oh, I'm still not sure. I think I might need to ask for another sign, because this is the opposite of strong faith. But God is gracious. He reveals his will to Gideon again through these signs. And Gideon finally chooses to trust God. In the very next chapter, Gideon manages to gather these 32,000 men to fight the 135,000 Midianites. But God says, that's too many because you'll think you did it yourself.
[00:22:07] So through God's instruction, Gideon ends up sending away all but 3, 300 men that he's gathered.
[00:22:16] Did it make sense to him? No, because there's no way that humanly 300 Israelites can defeat an army of 135,000 Midianites. If you thought the odds of Leicester City winning the Premier League were big, think again. These are even bigger.
[00:22:33] But Gideon remembers one very important thing. God was with him.
[00:22:39] And as he trusted that the battle belonged to the Lord, God's power came, and the Israelites were victorious.
[00:22:47] They won the battle. And without a single sword.
[00:22:52] Gideon stations his troops around the outside of the camp. And he gives them torches and trumpets and says, on my command, blow your trumpets. Smash the. Smash the jars. And as they do so, the Lord brings such confusion into the camp that. That the Midianites start turning on each other and killing each other and fleeing.
[00:23:09] But there's something critical that happened to Gideon which enabled him to step into the call of the mighty warrior on his life.
[00:23:17] And in Judges 6:34, it says this.
[00:23:20] The Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon, and as he sounded the trumpet, the Abyssarites were called out to follow him.
[00:23:31] See, when the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon, everything changed.
[00:23:38] First, 32,000 men are drawn to fight to him.
[00:23:42] Leadership.
[00:23:45] Secondly, he actually is obedient to God by sending the men away without asking for a sign or complaining.
[00:23:52] Faith.
[00:23:54] Thirdly, the men of Midian suddenly become afraid of him in a dream that Gideon overhears.
[00:24:02] And then finally, a once fearful man with no battle experience suddenly operates like an experienced warrior in his battle tactics, wisdom.
[00:24:14] You can almost imagine the conversations in Gideon's hometown. Who's this mighty warrior? Gideon? He's the guy who, like, is scared when a donkey sneezes. What on earth has happened to him?
[00:24:25] What has happened to him. Because this wasn't Gideon at work.
[00:24:29] This was God working through Gideon. See, as Holy Spirit clothed Gideon in power, his life was totally transformed. And some translations of this verse, instead of saying that the Spirit clothed Gideon, says that the Spirit clothed himself with Gideon. That the Holy Spirit took control of Gideon's life and and totally transformed him. He wore him like a glove and he became the man that God had called him to be. Moving in power, full of strength, courage, and wisdom, casting fear into the hearts of his enemies. And this is what walking with Jesus is all about. Being transformed by Holy Spirit in us.
[00:25:12] In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit is poured out upon specific people for specific purposes. But now, because of Jesus, all who believe are to be filled and transformed by the Holy Spirit's power. Jesus tells us in Luke 24 that we are clothed with power from on high. Paul tells us in Romans that we are to put on the Lord Jesus Christ every day to be so consumed and led by the Holy Spirit that we actually begin to look like Jesus and do the things he did.
[00:25:40] Holy Spirit wants to fill us and transform us on the inside so, so that we might look like Jesus on the outside.
[00:25:48] Will we allow Holy Spirit to wear us like a glove?
[00:25:53] And this is where this thing comes in.
[00:25:56] Because I don't know about you, sometimes I'm very keen to ask Holy Spirit to come and fill me and empower me.
[00:26:04] But I can be reluctant to give him access to everything.
[00:26:08] And right now, this glove, pretty useless.
[00:26:13] I can't do anything with it.
[00:26:16] But see, the more I surrender to the Holy Spirit, the more he can move in and through my life.
[00:26:24] So when I surrender to him, that feeling of discomfort and embarrassment when I'm led to talk to a stranger on the street about Jesus, it's like I let him put a finger in one of my finger holes in my glove.
[00:26:40] When I surrendered to him, my past hurt, my pain, my shame over my past life and allow him to use it as part of my testimony.
[00:26:51] Now there's more.
[00:26:54] When I surrender to him that hidden sin, I confess it, I deal with it.
[00:27:04] Now there's more access for him in my life now. When I lay down my own ideas and plans and my own wisdom and ask him for his wisdom, now he has full access to my life and he can use me how he wants to use me.
[00:27:22] See, even this week, I've been struggling with the behavior in one of the boys in my class. And I've tried every behavior management strategy under the sun. This, that, and the other. I was like, it's getting me nowhere. And God said, have you asked me?
[00:27:38] Have you asked me for wisdom? Have you asked me for what you should do?
[00:27:42] And so I did. I said, God, okay, I give you total access to everything, even these children in the classroom. Lord, would you do something? And he said, okay, here's what I want you to try. Something totally different to what all the strategies told me. I was like, okay, God, I'll try it.
[00:27:59] And I did.
[00:28:01] Behavior change just like that.
[00:28:05] See, the more we surrender, the more he takes over and the more of his kingdom and his glory is shown in our lives and in the lives of those around us. As we partner with him, as we allow Holy Spirit to clothe Himself with us, we step into the plans and purposes he has for us as we fight battles declaring it's not by might nor by power, but by your spirit.
[00:28:32] We too can see our nation changed. Just like Gideon.
[00:28:37] Guys, let me tell you.
[00:28:38] The enemy is afraid of what you can become when you surrender your life fully to the Holy Spirit.
[00:28:46] Jesus. Just like the Midianites were afraid of a spirit clothed Gideon, the enemy is afraid of men and women like you and me who are fully surrendered to the Holy Spirit.
[00:28:58] Will you let Holy Spirit wear you like a glove?
[00:29:04] So what can we learn from Gideon?
[00:29:06] First, it's God who qualifies us. Not our ability, not our personality, not our confidence, or even a lack of all these things is Him.
[00:29:16] He uses our weaknesses to make his glory shine brighter.
[00:29:21] God is not looking for self made strong people. He's looking for surrendered people.
[00:29:29] Secondly, God wants us to trust him in everything.
[00:29:33] So where is he asking for your trust again?
[00:29:36] It's time to tear down the idols in your life and trust Him.
[00:29:41] And finally, God wants to clothe you with the Holy Spirit.
[00:29:46] It's the Holy Spirit who transforms us. And when we allow him everything, our life is never the same again.
[00:29:55] God is calling out who you can become in him tonight.
[00:30:01] Not by might, not by power, but by his spirit.
[00:30:08] So are you ready to say yes to him tonight?
[00:30:13] I'm done. Why don't you stand?
[00:30:18] Thanks for listening to the Coma Charge podcast. If you enjoyed this message, you can like and subscribe. You can also join us in person or online every Sunday at Cromer Church. For more information about us, please, including our ministries, events, worship and how to donate, visit our website at Chroma Church.
