Read-along
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Hey, Rock Point. How you doing? Good to see you. K. So when you walked in, we attempted to hand you one of these amazing, unbelievable paintbrushes.
And you may have accidentally turned it down or not seen it. So you're gonna want it's gonna make a lot of sense in just a little while. So if you got in here, did not get one of these amazing paintbrushes, if you'll just slip your hand up, we'll come down, we'll make sure that you get one.
Otherwise, you're gonna feel like a goober when the service no. I mean, anyways. Hey, I I hope you guys realize how absolutely blessed you are to have Bill and Carrie Bush at this church. And yeah. There's two people excited. Good. Alright. Yeah. Hey. Here's here's what you need to hear me say. They
are incredible, incredible leaders, but more than that, they are two people who have fully given their hearts to Jesus Christ. And they've fully given their hearts to you. And and you need to know that who you see on Sunday is who they are on Monday. And in the world we live in right now, that's a rare thing.
And you guys are just absolutely blessed to have them. You may not know this. I was actually Bill's youth pastor when he was growing up. I was also Carrie's youth pastor as she was growing up. And Bill had surrendered to ministry and had gone to a school, Biola in Southern California.
I had moved churches and was serving as a youth pastor in Southern California. And Bill would go to school all weekend, and then Billy would come up and be on my staff. He was a volunteer intern during that time. And, yes, I did call him Billy. I am one of two living people who are allowed to call him Billy.
Other people have tried. They did not survive the attempt, but I get to call him Billy. And as Billy was coming up and and being an intern with me in the thriving metropolis of Yaquipa, California, I said to him, hey, there's two girls in the youth group who would make amazing pastors' wives.
You've gotta wait till they graduate, but then, you know and one of them was a little gal named Joe Wilson, and the other gal was a gal named Carrie Gillespie. And Bill waited till Carrie graduated,
and then he found a chance to sit down and kinda talk with her and flirt a little bit. And then he came back and he said, hey, Lynn, she's dating somebody else. And I said, you know, until the boy puts a ring on it. And you know the rest of the story on the deal. So I'm thinking Bill owes me big time,
and he's never paid me back. So he's a Welch. You know, what can I say on the deal? So supposedly, I am getting older. All of the young bucks on my staff try to put that up in my face. And I go, look guys, I am more passionate. I've got more vision. There's still tread on this old tire. Okay? So I'm here for a while.
But I have to be honest and tell you there's been two moments recently that have kind of shaken my confidence a little bit. One of them is that every morning, I go to McDonald's. I get a couple cups of coffee, and then I get an egg McMuffin sausage McMuffin with egg. Sausage well done every single morning.
And so I'm doing my normal routine, and they hand me out an application to work at McDonald's.
And I'm thinking, look, guys, I know I look young, but I don't look 16. Right? And that's, you know, that's who works at McDonald's. High schoolers, you know, their first job, they graduate, they go to college. And so this happens multiple times. You know, they I go and they've handed out. And and I'm being a little more perturbed each time and on the deal. And
lo and behold, I drive through one of the times and they hand me another application. I open it up and it says, now hiring seniors.
A second moment that kinda rattled me a little bit. I halfway recently was talking to our church about marriage and the fact that, you know, men and women come to marriage with very different expectations. And so I had this expectation
box, and I had little items in it, you know, that I would pull out and explain, you know, this is how men looking at it. This is how women have like a little plastic house.
And I said, you know, men have a different idea of what kind of house they're gonna live in and where the house is gonna be, you know, often than women do so that becomes attention. And and I said, you know, men and women often think about spending money differently. And I had little charge cards in there and I pulled them out. And, you know, hey, are we even gonna have charge cards? And are we savers? Are we spent you know, talking about that. And then it occurred to me
that I didn't have anything for children. And and one of the huge things that men and women probably think differently about as they get married, you know, are we having children? When are we having How many are we having children?
It's Sunday morning. I look at my watch. I've got twenty minutes to be at church. And I think, you know, I I I need to go to the store. I need to get a diaper. I'll put a diaper in the box and pull it out to talk about children. So I hop in my car. I go as fast as I possibly can toward Walmart. I may or may not have broken some laws.
And I pull into the Walmart parking lot. I park my car. I go running as fast as I can for the front door. I get inside the doors. There's the Walmart greeter. I'm doubled over. And all I can say is diapers.
The Walmart greeter says to me, pharmacy.
I went to the pharmacy and I'm kinda walking the aisles and I'm thinking, it seems kinda weird that diapers would be in the pharmacy. And I come around the corner, and there's this whole wall of depends. After I beat up the Walmart greeter, I went to the children's section and got some diapers for the morning.
I I was hoping we could have a conversation today
about what do you want your life to be. I mean, we get to your funeral, what do you want people to say about you? And and what if instead of just, you know, the normal two or three people that stand up and say, I'm so grateful and they were a great person. If instead it could be dozens?
What if it could be dozens of people who stood up and just said, this this person was so remarkable.
The way they followed Jesus, their courage, their heart, it was so it was so incredible to see. I'm just telling you, it affected me. My life was changed, and and my faith in Christ moved forward because of experiencing and watching their what if it could be dozens of people who said that about you?
Better than that, what if it could be hundreds? What if at your funeral, there would be hundreds of people that would say their life was so extraordinary. So I'm telling you, you couldn't be around this person and not be changed.
You couldn't be around this person and not love Jesus more. I mean, they were just an absolutely extraordinary follower of Jesus. And I'm just telling you, my life has not been the same because of them.
But isn't it true that most of us are actually ordinary and not extraordinary? I mean, if we really, really are honest, there's there's like this 10% of people who are unbelievably gifted. Have mean, they're athletes that you just how did they do that? There's people who understand math and just and you're like, how?
There's entrepreneurs, you know, like everything they touch just turns to how is that possible? There's people who sing, and you're like,
10%. And then there's 10% on the other end. People that you go, the elevator doesn't go very high. You know, they they they just seem to sit make all the same mistakes. They they never quite learn the lessons of life and are always just struggling over what seems incredibly simple.
10%. And then there's us. Right? There's the other 80% that if if we're just we're we're just ordinary. We're just average people. Right about now, there's some millennials in the room that are saying, hey, that's not what my mommy and daddy told me. They told me I was special. They lied.
As a matter of a fact, if you're 30 years old and still living at home, and and you're delivering pizzas so you have enough money to buy pot,
Here's the question I've got. What if ordinary you and what if ordinary me asked God to make us extraordinary? I wonder what God would do with that prayer. We're we're gonna take some time today, and we're gonna peek into the life of a guy who is ordinary or I mean, literally, he he may just barely be above that last 10%.
And yet, God is gonna take this very, very ordinary and do extraordinary things in his life. And you and I watching how that happens are gonna have the opportunity to do the very same thing that he did, to invite God to take ordinary us and do extraordinary things
with our lives. If you got your Bibles, go with me. We're gonna jump to the book of Judges.
If you're not familiar, Judges is in the Old Testament. It's just Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, and then this book of Judges. Judges chapter six.
Let let me set up the passage and what's happening in this moment. So there's a neighboring nation of Midian. And the Midianites, every year at harvest time, gather all of their troops together. They come down, and they invade Israel. The idea is we're gonna keep Israel under our thumb.
And so they steal the crops at harvest time. They party and drink till they're almost blind. They mess with all of the women. It's basically spring break on South Beach for Midianites. That's what they're doing. And
Gideon knows, that's who we're gonna talk about. Gideon knows that the Midianites are coming. There's a good chance he planted his crops a little bit early. He's trying to harvest them a little bit earlier before the Midianites come. They showed up.
And now he's he's doing his best efforts to get all of his crop in before they come and steal it all away from him. The Bible says, you ready for this? That when the Midianites came, their army looked like an ocean of locusts, of grasshoppers.
And there were so many camels that you could not number them. And what you need to know is camels in that day were kinda like tanks today. They would have been kind of the exception. There would have been far more soldiers
not on camels than on camels. And it says the ones on camels could not be numbered. We believe hundreds of thousands of Midianites are invading Israel at this moment. So here we go. It's Judges chapter six starting in verse 11. Here's what it says, the angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak.
Most theologians matter of fact, almost all theologians believe this angel of the Lord is actually Jesus.
Here's why. So the word angel, just so you know, simply means messenger. Right? But the reason that we believe that this is actually Jesus come to have a conversation with Gideon before he's born and spends those three and a half years with us on earth is because of what happens in verse 14.
So if you jump down real quick, it says this. It says, the Lord, talking about this messenger. Right? The Lord turned to him and said, but when you look at Lord, it's capital l, capital o, capital r, capital d. It's the word Jehovah. So Jehovah is having a conversation with Gideon, most likely Jesus,
before he came to this world. So the angel of the Lord, most likely Jesus, came and sat under the oak of Orphah, not Oprah. That's a completely different sermon. Goes a totally different way than we are today. The the oak of Orphah, that law that longed belonged to Joash the Abbezzi,
where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a wine press to keep it from Midianites. Now you and me hearing that, it doesn't register a lot. But if you had been back in that day hearing the story, you actually would have chuckled at this moment that Gideon is in a wine press threshing his wheat. Let me explain why.
So when you harvested your wheat, you cut off kind of the top head of the wheat. You would also get a little bit of the shaft with it, and you'd get some ancillary leaves that were right there with it. You would let that stay out for a while until it dried out, and then the the shaft part and the leaf part would become lighter
than actually the wheat kernels. You would then take a basket, and you would put it in there, and you would throw it up. And then the breeze would take all of the unwanted parts, the the little leaves and the shad, blow them away, and your heavier kernels would land back in the basket. K? Here's the problem.
There is no breeze in a wine press. A wine press is actually carved out of some of the softer stone in the area. It's usually four or five feet deep, and you put grapes in it to stomp to make your wine. Gideon is down in the wine press. There is no breeze. So Gideon's doing this.
To harvest his wheat. He's terrified out of his mind. He is in hiding from the Midianites. Back to the passage. When the angel of the Lord, verse 12, when the angel of Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, the Lord is with you, mighty warrior. Pardon me, Lord, Gideon replied. But if the Lord is with us,
why has all this happened to us? Where are the wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt? But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.
You and I have felt that way sometimes. Right? This is the guy who loses his job. And he and he loses his job not because he wasn't performing. He loses his job because they were downsizing. And and now you've been looking for work for six months and nobody's hiring.
And the bills are mounting up. The letters are coming in. And you're going, if this is what it feels like to have the Lord with me, hey, God, maybe you should take a vacation. And and maybe you don't start to let me work this out because it's not helping a lot for you to be with me right now.
This is that couple that's been trying to have a child. And they watch all of their friends, and they go, they're horrible parents. Why is God giving them children, and why is God withholding from us? Doesn't feel like God's with me.
This is the drive home from the doctor, and he said cancer. And he'll say, if if if God is with me, help me understand how this makes any sense. This this is the single adult who says, had a plan. And the plan was at 21, I would get married. And at 23, we would buy our first house. And at 25, we'd have our first kid. And
now I'm 31, and nobody's asking.
So explain to me how God is with me, because it feels more like God has abandoned me.
This is the marriage, and and you've done everything. You have gone the extra mile. You have been over you you have done everything to hold that thing together, and your spouse is leaving. So I'm just telling you in a moment, like, please please please don't try to tell me that God is with me because I can't see God
anywhere right now.
Back to the passage.
The Lord turned, capital l, capital o, capital r, capital d, Jehovah, turned to him and said, go in the strength you have and save Israel out of the hands of the Midianites. Am I not sending you? And my guess in this moment, Gideon looked back at him and said, were you watching when you walked up?
I don't have any strength. I'm the guy down in a wine press terrified out of my mind. What do you what do you mean go in the strength I have? And guys, I'm just telling you, there's gonna be moments in your life when your spouse is leaving, when you're not having children,
when the bills are mounting up.
And God is gonna say, go in the strength you have, and you're gonna go, I don't she says, no. No. No. No. All I'm asking is that tomorrow morning when you wake up, you just take a step in the direction I called you. You don't have to understand how this turns out. You you don't have to see my plan. You don't
take a step in the direction I asked you to step, and I am with you. I have sent you. And then tomorrow morning when you wake up, you don't have to understand. You don't have to see the just take another step. Just go in the strength you have. I'm sending you
to live tomorrow the way I asked you to live, to obey what I asked you to obey. That's all I'm asking. And then Gideon responds. He says, pardon me, Lord, Gideon replied, but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family. So
many of us have gone to church for years and years, and you've heard about the 12 tribes of Israel. And if I were to say to you today, hey, write down for me the 12 tribes of Israel from memory, my guess is almost all of us would forget Manasseh because this is tiny little
know nothing tribe. And and and that's what Gideon says. I'm in this like loser tribe. And and my family my family, no one even likes my family. And then my family doesn't like me. God, how how are you gonna use me to save Israel?
If if this if this were modern day, it'd be more like this. It'd be like, hey, God, I'm just telling you, I tried out for JV. I didn't make it. I I only had two dates in high school and I'm pretty sure she felt sorry for me. I I graduated with like a c plus. How could you use me?
And then in that moment, God says, oh, I didn't realize. Well, mind.
Now he says the opposite. Watch this. The Lord answered, I will be with you and you will strike down the Midianites leaving none alive.
You you get that right now Gideon is at a watershed moment in his life. He's either gonna stay in the wine press and go, God, know, you're asking a little too much and asking me to go I'll just stay where I'm comfortable. Or he by faith is gonna take that one step.
That one step. He's gonna say, okay, God. I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna trust you to take ordinary me and do something extraordinary with my life. And Gideon in that moment steps forward. He takes the call, and his life is never the same. But guys, here's what you and I gotta get. If he hadn't,
if Gideon had been content to stay in the wine press, he would have lived an absolutely ordinary life. You know, he probably would have eked out a few dollars for retirement. He probably would've had a couple kids, and they would've been pretty good kids. But he would've lived an ordinary life if he hadn't accepted the call.
Couple years ago, my wife signed us up for one of those painting classes. You know what I'm talking about? Where couples go and it's supposed to be a neat date and you paint. Right? You paint. What you may not know about me is I am wildly competitive. So as we're going to the painting class, I I go to myself,
my painting is gonna be the best painting. I I'm gonna listen to everything the teacher says, and I'm I'm gonna do it perfect. And then we're gonna take a vote at the end of the class, and they're gonna vote for my painting. That's that's how this works. So sure enough, we get to the class, and and I am I am fixed.
I am fixed on on the teacher. And every little stroke she did, I tried to mimic that stroke on on my painting and we got done. They didn't hold a vote. So we're driving home and I said to Lisa, hey Lisa, how'd you feel about your painting? And she goes, I I thought it was okay. And how'd you feel about mine? She goes,
it was okay.
I I took my painting home. I I was sure that we needed to, like, hang it in our house. And but I couldn't figure out what room. You know, I it had to be the right place, the right wall, and and all that. And so I took it and and I put it in the laundry room.
No. Wait. Wait. I put it in the laundry room so that like I you know, when I got home, I'd walk through the laundry room. I'd see the painting to remind me, I need I need to put that painting somewhere special. And that, you know, when I was leaving the house, I'd walk through the lawn and I'd see the painting to remind me, I need to find a place for my painting.
My painting stayed in the laundry room for about six months. And then I realized where it needed to go. And I went and I got the painting, and I walked it out to the backyard, and I put it in the trash can.
A few months later, Lisa and I were doing like an overnight date, and we went to Jerome. Jerome's this really cool, like, old mining town that now has all these, like, little artists that are, you know, there in the town. And while we're there, we walk into the kind of the lobby of this b and b thing,
and on the wall is this painting. I mean, the moment you walked in the room, boom, your eyes went. It was stunning. It was just unbelievable painting. And I walked over, I saw the price of the painting, and quickly concluded that apparently pastors are not supposed to own paintings. And
man and and so I I I tried to figure out an offer that I could and that's what I did. I went to the gal that was there, I said, look, is there any way you think that the artist would accept? You know? And I made an offer, and she said, you know, I don't know. I'll call him. I'll ask. So she goes to call him, and while I'm waiting, I'm, like, trying to there's no way they're gonna take my offer, and so I'm trying if I rob the Christmas fund, and if I pay it back, and, you I'm trying to put together a little, you know, a more of an offer. She comes back. They accepted my original offer.
So we take this painting home, and and in our home, the living room and the kitchen are kind of open to each other. We ended up hanging it up over some in the kitchen, and it literally has become like the statement piece in our home. You can't walk in and just, boom, and there's that painting.
I mean, it just it just literally is an unstatement in our house.
I'd like to think that the difference between that painting and my painting was the quality of the brush.
Probably not. Probably the difference in that painting and my painting is who was holding the brush.
Here's why that's important. Because while you were being formed in your mother's womb, God already knew who you were gonna be. He gave you the talents that he gave you. He gave you the personality that he gave you. You realize he was already painting a masterpiece with you.
He had this unbelievable plan of what he was gonna do with your life and how you were gonna end up being this extraordinary person. And then somewhere somewhere we peeked over his shoulder and we said, hey, God. How how come your painting has struggle over here? And and how come this part is taking so long?
And we just said to God, you know what? I got it from here. I I think I got a pretty good idea what I want my life to be. I got a pretty good idea what's gonna help me be fulfilled and happy. And so I'll I'll just take it. And we we took the brush away. It was like a five year old taking a brush from the master.
And then we began to paint our own lives. And the problem is this, that every stroke that you and I made was less. It was less than what God was painting for us, Which then brings you and me to the question that simply says, who's holding your brush? Because if it's you, if it's me, it's less, and I'll always be ordinary.
You ever wonder why God delights in using ordinary people?
I mean, if you look at you look at scripture over and over again, it's almost always an ordinary person who God uses to do extraordinary things. Why why why does God pick ordinary people? Why doesn't he pick amazingly talented people? Why doesn't he why doesn't he choose this 10% over here? I'm pretty sure it's because
if if something amazing happened with these people, with all their skill and talent capacity, everybody would say, oh, look at what you did. I mean, that's that's because you're so talented. That's because you're so smart and amazing.
And one of the struggles is is that people who have a lot of talent and a lot of capacity, they actually begin to believe it's theirs. And they go, yeah, I did. But you take an average person and you do something incredible, then everybody has to go, how did they do that?
How was that average person able to do something so extraordinary? And the only answer you get to come back to is, God must be with that person. That that must have been God using them to do something incredible, because they didn't have that capacity.
I have the privilege right now of leading a pretty extraordinary church. And I'm just telling you, if you'd seen me as a kid, you you would have never thunk. My mom caught my dad in multiple affairs when I was nine. He left home. Our family hemorrhaged. It left my mom with me and three younger sisters.
My baby sister was severely, severely, severely autistic. And when I say that, I'm not talking about like we see on TV and all of a sudden they're able to play the piano or do she was just severely handicapped. And my mom would get up in the morning at about 03:30, get my baby sister ready,
and then drive her to East Mesa. We lived in Tempe. She would drive her to East Mesa. And you gotta know this is back before the freeways. There is no 101. There is no 20. There's no 60.
And she would drive on surface streets from Tempe to East Mesa, drop my little baby sister off at her school. She would then drive on surface streets back past our home in Tempe, drive out to McDowell and 19th Avenue to work in a doctor's office as a receptionist for $2.40 an hour.
She'd get off work at rush hour. She would drive back on surface streets past our house, go all the way to East Mesa, pick up my baby sister, bring her home, get home about seven, 07:30. Which simply meant this, that in the morning when we woke up, mom was long gone. So we're all foraging for
breakfast for ourselves. We get ourselves to school. We come home from school at 03:00. We run the streets wild. We were like a pack of wolves.
Mom wouldn't get home till seven. We'd already figured out something for dinner on the deal, and then it would happen the next day. If you were a neighbor watching us, you you see our lawn go month after month and not get mowed. You'd watch our house kind of falling down around our ears. And I guarantee you, you looked at the winter's kids and you said, those kids are going to jail.
I guarantee you, if one of my neighbors could see me today and see what God has done with it would go, God must be with that boy, because that boy didn't have any of that in him. Guys, that's why God delights in using ordinary is it possible that your greatest qualification is that you're ordinary,
and that God says, can work with that because people will know it was me. There's a really, really great verse in this passage. Go back with me to verse 12. Verse 12, it says, when the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, the Lord is with you, mighty warrior. Think about that.
When when Jesus appeared to the angel, Gideon's down in in a wine press, and he says, oh, mighty does he say that? I believe he says that because he sees who Gideon is gonna be if he surrenders the brush.
See, here's the deal. You and I you and I, we can kinda see our past and what's happened there. But isn't it true that we struggle to even interpret it and figure out why did God let that happen, and what was that moment about? And it feels like such unfairness. And I mean
and and then we're in our present, and we go, man, there's like four options. I mean, which option's the better option? And yet God is able to look at those four options and go, hey, here's the thing. Texas looks really good, and it looks like a raise, but you're gonna get there and hate your supervisor.
You're you're gonna get less house and you Texas is gonna we have no idea. Right? But God literally sees every one of those options to the end. But better than that, God looks at your future and he sees who God would make you to be if you were to give him the brush. I wonder what God would whisper in your ear.
I wonder if he'd say, oh woman of honor, oh man amongst men, O life changer. Because he can see what God would do with you if God had the brush.
Here's the thing I need I need to say, just in honesty and upfrontness. If you make that choice, if you say, hey, God, it's just ordinary me, and and I'm and I'm you the brush right now, and I'm just asking you to do something extraordinary with ordinary me,
it is highly, highly, highly, highly, highly likely that what already seems hard will get harder. You're in a marriage that's struggling and and if you say, hey, God, you know, make something extraordinary. The marriage may get harder. Hey, I'm waiting to have children. You may have to wait longer
Because it is absolutely God's MO that when you and I surrender, when we say, hey, God, do do do something that God actually on purpose makes it harder. Watch this. Go back to the passage. It's a it's chapter seven starting in verse one.
And here's the moment. Here's the Midianites. There's probably hundreds of thousands of them. Gideon has gone to the people of Israel. He said, okay. We're we're gonna revolt. We're gonna stand up against this. Everybody who's with me, gather together. 32,000 Israelites. Hundreds of thousands of Midianites, 32,000
Israelites. And God is gonna make it harder. Here we go. Chapter seven starting in verse one. It says, early in the morning, Jerob, Baal, that is Gideon, and all of his men camped at the Spring Of Herod. The camp of Midian was to the north of them in the valley in the valley near the Hill Of Mora.
The king said the Lord said to Gideon, you have too many men. If I'm Gideon at this moment, I'm going, have you actually counted?
You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into your hands or Israel will boast against me. They will say my own strength has saved me. Now announce to the army, anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead. So 22,000 men left while 10,000 remained. But the Lord said to Gideon,
there are still too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will thin them out there for you.
If I say this one shall go with you, he shall go. And if I say this one shall not go with you, he shall not go. So Gideon took the men down to the water. There the Lord told him, separate those who lap the water with their tongues as dogs lap from those who kneel down to drink.
300 of them drank from cupped hands, lapping like dogs. All the rest got down on their knees to drink. The Lord said to Gideon, with the 300 men that lapped, I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands. Let all the others go home.
So Gideon sent the rest of the Israelites home, but kept the 300 who took over the provisions and the trumpets of the others. Now, I've never been in the military, but I can't figure out how lapping your water like a dog qualifies you as a soldier.
Here's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking God just waited until he saw what they did and said, I'll take the small group. Because I'm gonna make sure that when I do this, everybody sees that I took ordinary you and did something extraordinary through you.
You realize God just did this on purpose. He literally on purpose made it harder for Gideon. And guys, this shouldn't surprise us because if you stop and think, every single bible story that we tell our children is about ordinary people who God used to do extraordinary things. And when they surrendered the brush,
God always made it harder. Think about this. You're Daniel, and you've been dragged off to a foreign country, and you're a slave. You're just doing your best to survive. You're you're doing all you can, but you're obeying God. And then God lets you go into a lion's den. You're Abraham. And God comes to you when you're 90.
And he says to you, I'm gonna make you a father of nations. Now here's the truth. When you're 90 years old, some of the equipment doesn't work like it used to work. And then if that's not bad enough, God waits ten more years before he has a son. God just made it harder. You're Joseph.
Your brothers have beat you up, thrown you in a pit, sold you into slavery. You're now in Egypt just going, look, guess I'm gonna be the best slave for God I can be. And then God allows a woman to falsely accuse you and you end up in prison. You guys, I'm just saying to you.
If you surrender the if you say, hey God, I'm just ordinary me, but I want you to do something extraordinary with my life. Don't be surprised. Don't be surprised when it gets harder.
Jump down with me to verse 22. So God says to them, here's the deal. You're gonna you're gonna you're gonna keep your swords in the sheath. You're gonna take trumpets. Every man's gonna have a trumpet, and then each man's gonna carry a clay pot. You'll light a torch. You'll set the torch underneath the clay pot.
When the moment comes, you're gonna yell out the sword of the Lord and Gideon. You're gonna break the clay pots so that all the Midianites see the torches, and then you're gonna blow your trumpets. That's the battle plan. And again, guys, I haven't been in the military, but I I would be asking questions.
Here's what happens. Verse 22. And when the 300 trumpets sounded and the Lord caused the men throughout the camp to turn on each other with their own sorts, The army fled from Bethshitta to Zerah and as far as the border of Abel,
Meloah near Tabith. So here's the moment. The Midianites see all these torches. They hear all these horns and immediately panic goes through the camp. It's interesting because in those days, they didn't have uniforms.
You just went to every village, said, hey, every able-bodied man, come with me. They all came in their work clothes. So when this confusion, when this panic, they don't know who's on their side, who's not. And they literally begin to slay each other. The Bible says for two days, they chase them and just slaughter them all along the way. 300
over hundreds of thousands. Because because you're ready for this? Because God always does his best work on the other side of harder. See, on the other side of harder, lions refuse to eat. On the other side of harder, a young boy takes a sling and hurdles a rock, and it hits the exact spot and giants fall.
On the other side of harder, old men father nations. On the other side of harder, slaves become the second highest official in the strongest country of the world. And on the second other side of Harder, 300 route hundreds of thousands.
I wonder what God would do with ordinary you if he had the brush. Here's what I'd like for us to do. I'd like for us just to bow our heads today. And I'd like for you to just have an honest moment, an honest conversation with God. And and the question would simply be this, hey God, who's holding my brush?
And if in your heart you know it's you, for some of us it's kind of a part time thing. You know, we let God hold the brush for a little while and then when he's messing up, we take the brush back. And then every once in a while we let him have a try at it again.
What would it mean to surrender the brush? Because you realize that ever as long as you hold it, every stroke you make, your life is less.
Surrender the brush. And if you're here today and you say, hey, Lynn, that's me. I I I need to give God the I need to ask him, would you take ordinary me
and do something extraordinary in my life? And I know that's what I need to do. Then with everybody's head bowed and it's just you and it's me and it's God, would you just slip up your hand and say, I I know I need to surrender the brush. I get it. Good. You can put your hands back down. Who else?
Who else says, hey, it's me. I I I can I got it? Good. Okay. Put your hands back down. Let me pray for you that raised your hands just now. Hey, dearest heavenly father, here's my prayer. Man, it takes a lot of courage. It takes a lot of honesty to say, I've been holding my brush.
Takes a lot of courage to surrender the brush. And I'm praying for each of these today who raised their hands that this would be a watershed moment. This would be a life forever different moment. And that they would look back in years to come and say, I'm telling you, God invited me on this incredible, extraordinary
journey the minute I handed the brush back to him. And I'm just telling you what God has done with me and what God has done through me, you could only explain that God was using ordinary me to do extraordinary things. And that God, that they would be absolutely changed and blessed
because of today. I pray this in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Hey, Here's what I wanna ask all of us to do.
Would you take your brush and would you like set it on your sink near where you get ready in the morning? Would you would you put it on the dashboard of your car where you drive to work every single morning? And for the next thirty days when you see the brush, you just simply ask yourself this question, who's holding my brush today?
And
that you would simply choose and decide, hey, today, I'm just gonna do what God would want me. I'm gonna take that one step of I'm just gonna I'm gonna say the things God would want me to say. I'm gonna forgive the things God would want me to forget. I'm just gonna treat people the way God would want me to treat people today.
Let God hold the brush for the next thirty days and see what he would do with ordinary you.
Church, do you believe that? Come on. Hey. Thanks for joining us for service online this weekend. Be sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on the Rock Point Church app for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.
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