Have you ever had someone throw you a surprise party? Some of you have some of you haven't, but you know what a surprise party is. You know, you thought you were walking into a quiet room and then suddenly: SURPRISE! All the lights come on, and you see the room is filled with family and friends that are celebrating you. It was a surprise, and surprises like that are a lot of fun. But there are times when surprises aren't that fun. Such as when you're already running late for work, you're speeding down the highway and surprise, you have a blowout. Not so fun. Or when you thought you were sitting down to a nice quiet night at home, and then the phone rings and surprise, the in-laws are coming over for dinner. Or maybe you're a parent who has saved and saved up the money, and you've planned for months to go on that once-in-a-lifetime Disney vacation. So you sit the kids down and you tell them the news, and you're thinking they're going to be jumping up and down for joy and surprise, you get this reaction. Dad: There's a clue in your bag. Look in your bag Gavin. No. Daughter: I already found a clue in my bag. Dad: What is it? Daughter: Disney World! [scream] I'm going to Disney! Gavin, we're going to Disney World! Son: I don't want to. [crying] Dad: What? [audience laughs] I mean, he did not want to see Mickey Mouse y'all! Oh my goodness. Well those kinds of surprises that don't go the way you had planned they're not very fun, but sometimes it's even worse than that. You thought you were fully prepared for retirement. You'd saved, you'd planned, you'd looked forward to those years and then surprise, the economy takes a bad turn and now you have to work a lot longer than you had anticipated. We all like predictability, right? We like to know what's coming. We want to know what's coming so that we can be prepared, but sadly life's just not always like that. Sometimes things happen that you don't anticipate and that you can't understand, and it's hard to see God's hand at work during those times, and it's hard to understand what's going on. You get confused and you think, "God, this just doesn't make sense what I'm going through right now." Well today we're looking at one of those moments from the Bible. It's a story about an unlikely hero named Gideon who faced an unpredictable situation. Gideon was a farmer. He lived in Israel during a period of history when most of his friends and fellow countrymen had abandoned God, and were doing evil. The whole country was following the wrong path, and as a result God allowed enemies to come in and take everything from Israel. It went something like this. Gideon planted his crops, he worked his farm. After he harvested it the Midianite army would come in steal everything that he'd worked for, and leave him with nothing. And that happened over and over again. We find Gideon in Judges chapter 6, verse 11. And it's a situation that does not exactly describe an amazing military hero. It says, "The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites." So Gideon was so terrorized by the Midianites that he threshed his wheat in a winepress. It was the absolute worst place to perform that task. See, threshing is that process by which you separate the edible portion of the wheat from the stalk. You don't thresh wheat in a closed-off area. You thresh wheat on a threshing floor that's open so that the stalk can blow away, and then you're left with all the good wheat. Well Gideon was trying to thresh his wheat in a winepress because it kept him hidden, and he was terrified. He was scared that the Midianites would see him threshing wheat and then decide to steal it from him, so he hid. Verse 12 goes on to say, "When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, 'The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.'" Okay let me read that again, because I don't think I read it right. I don't think God is really telling THAT to the guy who's hiding in a winepress so that he can't be seen by the Midianites. Did God really just call him a mighty warrior? "When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, 'The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.'" Okay yes, He did. He said it. That's what He said to Gideon. Now does that make any sense? Of course not! Gideon was not a mighty warrior, he was a spineless weakling. He was cowering away from his enemies, he was not facing them down. He was not running to the front lines. He was running away from the fight, but it gets even worse. "The Lord turned to him and said, 'Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand. Am I not sending you?'" So God told him to, "Go in the strength you have." What strength is God talking about here? Gideon is afraid, he's chicken, he has no strength. So what was God doing choosing a scaredy-cat weakling to lead the nation of Israel out of the hand of its enemies? That doesn't make sense, and Gideon thought the same thing. Here he is alone and afraid threshing wheat in a winepress. Even when the angel spoke to him and declared he would be the one to bring about the victory for the Israelites, Gideon began to argue. "'But Lord,' Gideon asked, 'How can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.'" You ever felt that way? You ever looked at what God's asking you to do and said, "What? Me? You want me to do that? God, are You sure I am the one You're wanting to use, a nobody? Are you sure you want ME to share my faith with my coworkers? I mean, I don't know a whole lot about the Bible. Wouldn't it be better for us to invite Pastor Rod to work, and maybe he could preach during the lunch break? That would be better God." Or, "God, are You sure You want me to serve on a ministry team? I mean, I used to be a terrible sinner. What would they think?" Or, "God, are You sure You can use me to be a Connections Class teacher? I'm not very good at speaking in public." See, you say, "God, are You sure You can use me?" You know you do. You tell God things like this as if He's completely unaware. God calls you to do something and you say, "Oh God, You got the wrong guy. You got the wrong girl. How can I do what You've called me to do?" If you feel that way you're not alone, because Gideon felt exactly the same way. And not just Gideon, all throughout the Bible people felt that way. Moses said it didn't make sense for God to use him to deliver Israel from Egypt. He said, "Who am I that I should go before a Pharaoh?" Jeremiah was called to be a prophet for God, but he said, "O Sovereign Lord, I do not know how to speak. I am only a child." See, God has a plan for your life, He has a plan for your family, He has a plan for the place you work. He has a plan, and you know what? It includes you. You are someone God is desiring to use in His plan. The all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing great God can do anything, and He chooses to use you and me to accomplish His plan and His will. Isn't that amazing? He doesn't have to, He chooses to. See, you think it doesn't make sense for God to use you, because you know all your weaknesses and you feel it's impossible to accomplish the task. Listen, God knew your weaknesses before He ever called you. He's not shocked or surprised by your weaknesses. He created you. He knows what you can and can't do, and that's why His answer to Gideon was the same as His answer is to you. "The Lord answered, 'I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together.'" See, when you say, "God, are you sure you can use me?" God says, "I will be with you." Now, when you notice Gideon's emphasis he really likes to use the word 'I' in his story. He says, "I am the least. How can I deliver Israel?" And Moses said the same thing, so did Jeremiah, and so do you and you're exactly right. On your own you can't accomplish God's will. But to Moses God said, "Certainly, I will be with you." To Jeremiah God said, "Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you." To Jacob who was alone in the desert running for his life from his brother God said, "I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." To Joshua who took over for the legendary leader Moses God said, "Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified, do not be discouraged." Why? "For the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." To the disciples Jesus said in Matthew 28, "Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." And to you God says, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." Aren't you glad that's the truth? God's promise to Gideon is God's promise to you. Whatever circumstance you find yourself in God says, "I am with you. Don't be discouraged, don't be depressed, don't be afraid, don't worry. I am for you and it doesn't matter who or what is against you. I'll always be with you, and I'm never going to leave you." What a blessed assurance. After a series of events, and I'll just be honest with you a whole lot of convincing, Gideon decided to answer God's call to lead his people into battle. And even though it made no sense at all. But if you think that God's plan didn't make sense so far, you ain't seen nothing yet. Gideon put out a call for all the fighting men of Israel to meet him at the spring of Harod so that he could assemble an army to defeat the Midianites. And he looked out at this army, this vast array of 32,000 men, and he thought: Okay, this could be cool. We could do this. But Judges 7:2 says, "The Lord said to Gideon, 'You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands.'" Too many men. He's saying you have too many men to go into the fight. I mean, how do you have too many men? Okay, I understand if you have 60 men inside of a 50 man lifeboat. Okay, you got too many men. But to fight against an enemy that you're already outnumbered by four to one, how can you have too many men? It's like God's saying, "I'm sorry. You have too much money to make it through your financial crisis. I'm sorry." Or, "I'm sorry. You have too much food to make it through the famine." This doesn't make sense. What was God thinking? Well God said, "In order that Israel may not boast against Me that her strength has saved her, announce now to the people, 'Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.' So 22,000 men left, while 10,000 remained." It's not going well for Gideon y'all. He had 32,000 guys and all he does is say, "Hey, if you're scared go ahead and leave," and 22,000 people leave! Now he's down to 10,000. So Gideon is going to take on the army of the Midianites with not 32,000, but 10,000. Hopefully now God is done with His nonsensical orders and is ready to send Gideon's army to fight, right? Not quite. "The Lord said to Gideon, 'There are still too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will sift them for you there. If I say, 'This one shall go with you,' he shall go; but if I say, 'This one shall not go with you,' he shall not go.' So Gideon took the men down to the water. And there the Lord told him, 'Separate those who lap the water with their tongues like a dog from those who kneel down to drink.' Three hundred men lapped with their hands to their mouths. All the rest got down on their knees to drink. The Lord said to Gideon, 'With the three hundred men that lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands. Let all the other men go each to his own place.'" Gideon had to be thinking: When is this going to end? I can't get a decent order from God to save my life! He said, "I had the army of 32,000 men to take on our enemies, and now I'm left with 300 men? And the only thing they have going for them is that they drink politely!" [audience chuckles] To give you a little perspective, the population of the city of Sherwood is roughly 32,000. So that means God whittled Gideon's army down from the size of the city of Sherwood, down to the amount of people in this sanctuary right now. Gideon had to be freaking out! Because he had this massive army to fight, and God is shrinking his army down to nearly nothing. You see, when God doesn't make sense you say, "God, this enemy is too big." You think you're going in for a regular checkup, and the doctor comes in and hits you with the news. He mentions the word 'cancer'. You think: God, I can't face cancer. It's too big! It's too much, God! It's too strong of a disease, I cannot win. Or maybe your child has walked away from God and from you. They're living in outright rebellion. And each night as you cry yourself to sleep you say the enemy's hold on their life is just too big. The bondage is too strong, they're too far gone. Or maybe your marriage is hopelessly damaged, and you're on the brink of divorce. And maybe you sit there and say, "There's just too much damage that's already been done, God. The problem is too big, there is no way I'll see victory in my family." See, you look at the circumstances and you are convinced that there's no hope. You're convinced that the enemy is just too big, the problem is too tough, the situation is too bleak. But God demonstrated something to Gideon that He wants you to learn. God told Gideon to take the 300 men and go into battle against an entire army of the Midianites. God wasn't intimidated! He had a plan. See, when you say the enemy is too big God says, "I am bigger." So you don't have to deny the power of the enemy, that's not what I'm saying. Satan is sly, he is cunning, and in this world he is powerful. But First John 4:4 says that, "Greater is the one who is in you than he who is in the world." Your enemies may rise up against you, but Romans 8:31 says, "What then shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?" See, God was bigger than the Midianites Gideon faced, it's true. And God is bigger than the sickness you're facing, and He's bigger than the financial pressure you're facing, and He's bigger than the family issue that you're facing. Your enemy is big no doubt about it, but God says, "I am bigger." And His power is greater than anything that you're facing. The story continues, "During that night the Lord said to Gideon, "Get up, go down against the camp, because I am going to give it into your hands. If you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah and listen to what they are saying. Afterward, you'll be encouraged to attack the camp.'" And here we go again, God's giving him more crazy orders. Does this make any sense? Gideon's the guy who was afraid of the Midianites, and was threshing his wheat in a winepress. And now God told him to go down into their camp. Not far away from their camp where he can kind of spy on them with his binoculars, but right down into the camp. So close that he could hear what the enemy is saying. That's basically sitting right in the middle of the enemy's camp. Gideon had to be thinking: Are you kidding me God? But he did it anyway. "So he and Purah his servant went down to the outposts of the camp. The Midianites, the Amalekites and all the other eastern peoples had settled in the valley, thick as locusts." That's a lot of people. "Their camels could no more be counted than the sand on the seashore. Gideon arrived just as a man was telling a friend his dream. 'I had a dream,' he was saying. 'A round loaf of barley bread came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It struck the tent with such force that the tent overturned and collapsed.' His friend responded, 'Well this can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands.'" Now let's just talk about this dream for a second, okay? The Midianite soldier said, "I dreamed of a big loaf of bread rolling down into the camp and it knocked over my tent." Okay that's weird enough, right? It's a weird dream. But then the second soldier says, "Oh! Well your dream can only mean one thing. Gideon and his army are going to come and whoop us tonight that's what's going to happen. [audience laughs] Does that make any sense? Dude dreamed of a rolling loaf of bread, and his friend told him it must mean Gideon's going to defeat them. That's silly. I mean seriously, what does this have to do with going into battle? Nothing. You know it's a good thing that I wasn't the guy that the person was telling the dream to, because I've really never been very good at that whole interpreting dreams thing. And I would have probably said, "Oh! You dreamed of a loaf of bread. Well that means you're not supposed to be a soldier, you're supposed to be a baker. [audience chuckles] And you better not let the captain catch you loafing around, or you're going to be toast. Where's the butter? I'm on a roll. Alright, I'm sorry. Crumby joke. Some of y'all will get that in a second. [audience chuckles] Okay, who dreams of bread anyway? Nevertheless, God used these Midianites and the wacky bread dream to encourage Gideon because look what happened. "When Gideon heard the dream and its interpretation, he worshiped God. He returned to the camp of Israel and called out, 'Get up! The Lord has given the Midianite camp into your hands.'" So it was time to prepare for battle, and next God gave Gideon the most outrageous battle plan that you have ever heard. "Dividing the three hundred men into three companies, he placed trumpets and empty jars in the hands of all of them, with torches inside. 'Watch me,' he told them. 'Follow my lead. When I get to the edge of the camp, do exactly as I do. When I and all who are with me blow our trumpets, then from all around the camp blow yours and shout, 'For the Lord and for Gideon.'" So instead of in the middle of the night rushing the Midianite camp and overtaking them in their sleep killing them one by one while they slept, God had another plan. Once again His plan didn't seem to make sense. Gideon and his army are supposed to hold up jars and candles, and blow trumpets. Does this sound like a strategy that is going to work? I mean, candles and jars? This is the Bath & Body Works strategy for military battle. [audience laughs] I mean, can you see it? We're going to attack them with our candles. [audience chuckles] You may take our lives, but you'll never take our candles. This makes no sense, and yet that's what God told them to do. Listen, maybe you're in a situation that doesn't make any sense. Maybe you're in a situation where God's spoken to you, and He's given you specific things that He wants you to do and yet you've said, "God, you can't be talking to me. That doesn't make sense." Well as you've learned today, that feeling that sense that you have, God's not intimidated by that. He knows it's difficult to understand His plan. He knows that it's difficult to understand His purposes for your life. You don't have to understand, okay? Gideon didn't understand. It didn't make sense, it wasn't natural, it wasn't logical. You don't have to understand, you just have to obey. You see, there's a principle here that's very important. A lack of understanding does not excuse a lack of obedience. See, some of you have missed out way too long because you've sat back and you've refused to give God control of your life. You're trying to analyze every move that God makes, and you're trying to force it to fit your limited understanding of how life should work. Quit trying to make sense of God, it won't work. Instead trust Him, obey Him, and experience the victory. See, God's saying to you, "It may not make sense but trust Me, I am God." So make sense or not it's time for battle. It was time to see if all this crazy stuff that God had come up with is really going to work. So we pick up the story in verse 19, "Gideon and the three hundred men," or excuse me, "Gideon and the hundred men with him reached the edge of the camp and the beginning of the middle watch, at the beginning of the middle watch, just after they had changed the guard. They blew their trumpets and broke the jars that were in their hands. The three companies blew the trumpets and smashed the jars. Grasping the torches in their left hands and holding in their right hands the trumpets they were to blow, they shouted, 'A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!' While each man held his position around the camp, all the Midianites ran, crying out as they fled. When the three hundred trumpets sounded, the Lord caused the men throughout the camp to turn on each other with their swords. And the army fled." It worked. In spite of all of it going against human logic and understanding, God's plan worked and the Israelites were victorious. The enemy was defeated, and peace reigned over Israel again. See, the final lesson that you can learn from Gideon is a very simple one, it's not difficult. Because when you look back throughout the story God asked Gideon to do some things that made absolutely no sense. Asking a weak and scared farmer to lead an army, that makes no sense. Telling that farmer that he has too many men to win the battle, that makes no sense. Instructing Gideon to trim down the army by their style of drinking water makes no sense. Using a dream of a loaf of bread to encourage Gideon, that makes no sense. Instructing Gideon to use lamps and trumpets to defeat the enemy makes no sense at all. But often, God's ways won't seem to fit within the realm of your simple human logic. What's God's plan for your finances? Give more of it away. What's God's plan for your response to someone who's hurt you deeply? Love them, serve them, pray for them. What's God's plan for you to have an incredible life? Die to yourself. God's plan for being the greatest in the Kingdom is to be the servant of all. You see, if there's one thing Gideon's story teaches us is that God doesn't have to make sense. Isaiah 55:9 God puts it very simply for us. He says, "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." See, it doesn't have to make sense to you. God's ways are much higher than yours. God's thoughts are so much higher than yours. See, you see you the moment, but God sees eternity. You see sickness, but God sees the healing that is to come. You see broke, and God sees blessed. You see lost, and God sees found. You see no hope whatsoever, and God sees the victory that is on the horizon right now. So what does God say when you say, "God, this doesn't make sense"? God says, "I am God." God's ways may not make sense to you, but He is the all-powerful God who created the world. He's not subject to the laws of the world, the laws of the world are subject to Him. You might be in a situation a lot like Gideon. Maybe you're asking God, "Are You sure You can use me?" Some of you God has specifically spoken to you, something He wants you to do might be in the church, might be in your neighborhood, it might be with a relationship that you have with someone at work. [piano begins] But God's speaking to you to say certain words, to take a certain action, and you see yourself as worthless and not able to live up to that calling. God says, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness." Would you bow your head and close your eyes for a moment? Because I know that in this room and watching online there are people, who just like Gideon, are facing an enemy that seems unconquerable. You feel like you're going up against several armies with only a small amount of men, you feel like you're completely outnumbered, the odds seem insurmountable. You say, "Well the enemy is too big, I can't win the battle. This sickness is too big, the issue in my family is too big, the problem that I have at work is too big." And God says, "I am with you right now right here, and My power is made perfect in your weakness."
