FLAWED HEROES | Week 3 | Full Service

Truthfully, it's a pretty dark book, but it's a really important book for us to understand

both our humanity and how to fully understand who God is in us. And today we're gonna look at a story of a guy named Gideon that if you've been in church, you've heard his story. But I wanna look at the moment where God finds him. There's some really incredible truths we can see in the call of Gideon. So Judges six, you turn there. Let me pray. Father, God, these next few moments, Lord, this is a supernatural act where through one person you'll speak, but to everybody in this room, you will

speak individually and specifically. And so God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we give you permission to speak to our hearts right now. Would you allow whatever distractions

and things that are affecting us to just be at the foot of the cross right now and for these next few moments, would we hear a word from God so that we can walk out of this room different than we came in here. It is in the mighty name of Jesus all God's people said, amen. I was thinking about it this week.

One of the downsides of being a golfer, like that was my sport, is I wasn't like the cool guy in high school by any stretch of the imagination. Know what I mean? Like I used to watch the football players that would walk in and have like their jerseys on game day and all the girls were just like, Oh, look at the football players. And I was like one of the top players in my state in golf. And there would be times where they would like announce over the speaker that I had like won a tournament and people that were like good friends of mine would turn and be like, wait. You play golf? And I'm like, man, this is just my life. But the one benefit of playing golf over football is I get to continue to play golf for the rest of my life, where you who played football, you peaked in high school. So it's on you, suck up. Right? I'm just kidding. But

the funny part was is nobody got to see like the cool moments that I had, and there wasn't a ton of them, but there was one really cool moment in high school that I did have. So every year, I grew up in San Diego, there was a match play tournament that you had to qualify for that was played at Torrey Pines South, which if you're not a golfer, Torrey Pines South is like this iconic course. It's one of the only municipal courses in the country that's ever hosted a US Open. Like it's big deal. It's a beautiful course. It's right on the water. It's also a really difficult course. And so we would have to play a tournament to qualify to get into that tournament. Only 32 players in the state made it. Well, the qualifying round, I played horrendously. I shot like an 81 and I thought there was no way that I'm ever I know some of were like 81 and I would dream to shoot an 81, but I get it. Just stay with me, okay?

But I shoot an 81. I'm like, there's no way I'm gonna get into this tournament. Mind you, the guy that is the number one seed, the guy that's the first to qualify for the tournament, he shoots a 62. Okay? So 62 in high school. This is the people I'm playing against. And I shoot an 81. But I'm like, there's no chance I'm getting in, but somehow everybody else played pretty terribly and my 81 got me into the thirty second spot of this tournament. I was the last guy to qualify for the match play tournament. Well, if you know how brackets work, right, we're in the middle of March Madness right now and it's kind of awkward with Arizona having such an upset happen. But I will let you know San Diego State is in the Elite Eight and we are welcoming bandwagon fans. So you're welcome to hop on with us now that Arizona's out of it. But

I'm the thirty second person to qualify. And when you know how brackets work, means in the first round, you're playing the number one seed.

The number one seed my senior year of high school that shot the 62 to qualify for this tournament was a guy by the name of Ricky Fowler, okay? Maybe you've heard of him. He's one of like the superstars on the PGA tour today.

That was who I was playing against in the first round of this tournament at Torrey Pines South. And when I saw the bracket come out, our coach sat us down. I like, hey, here's the two of you that qualified. Here's the bracketing system. I was like, well, I'm gonna go do something else on that day. Like, there's no point of me showing up. You know? Like, there's I I genuinely was like, there's literally no point of me even showing up to this tournament. This is the quintessential

David versus Goliath. He's gonna be dressed in all orange and have his hair down and just humiliate me in front of everybody. And I was like, coach, I gotta tell you, I'm not going.

He's like, do you mean you're not going? Like, There's literally no point for me in playing this tournament. And I was dead serious. He's like, Well, you have nothing to lose. And I'm like, Sure, I've got dignity to lose. I've got respect to lose. You know what I mean? Like, these people think I'm somewhat of a decent golfer on my team and I'm gonna show up and just get mopped over by this guy. But my coach is like, man, I've seen you play.

At your best, you can hang with this guy. If you show up and do what you can do, you can do it as good as him. So I'm like, all right. So I show up to this tournament. Man, I don't know what happens, but I come out of the gates just hot. I birdied the first three holes of this tournament. And by the fourth hole, I'm two up on Ricky Fowler.

And so I start to be like, okay, I thought I had no shot, but I started to feel like, okay, maybe I can do this thing. And I made the turn at hole nine, right? You know the part in the golf where you get like a hotdog and a soda. At that point in the golf round,

I was two up on Ricky Fowler. My teammates saw it, it was on the board. Like my coach was talking about it. They're like ringing the upset alert, things are going off. And I started to, I made a turn onto the back nine and all of a sudden this thing started to come alive and we were like, man, I believe I can do this. Like I'm about to take down Ricky Fowler. Know what I mean? Like they're about to be singing my praises. This is about to be amazing. They're like, Ricky who? It's Daniel Goulding. Come on somebody.

And then the problem was is Ricky did what Ricky does and he shot six under on the back nine and beat me two and one, but for a quick minute it looked like I had a shot against him.

The reason that I tell you that story is that tournament catalyzed something in me. I went on to after that year have the, after that tournament have the best year of golf that I had ever had competitively.

And as I look back over the journey, was that moment where I began to really truly believe that I wasn't just talented, but I actually did have what it took. That there was another level inside of me when it came to competition

with golf that I could do this. There was something that awoke inside of me that this moment of adversity, if you will, actually brought it out of me.

And I started to play differently because I believed that there was something else in me. And the reason that I start there is I don't think it's just true about my golf game. I think the same thing is true about every single one of us. That all of us tend to just play down to where we are in life and what's happened to us in life and the reality of where we are. But the truth is, is that I believe that there's another level. There's a deeper calling. There's a deeper sense of meaning and purpose and significance and worth and value inside of every single one of us.

But we have to learn to live up to that standard. My hope and my prayer is to show you through the story of Gideon in Judges chapter six, that there is something greater within you.

There is friends, the big idea I wanna spend the next few moments looking at, I believe that inside of every single one of you sitting in this room, there's a warrior within you. There is a powerful warrior inside of every single one of you. And I'm telling you right now, friends, the world is desperate

for the church to remember the war that needs to be fought, the enemy that needs to be attacked, the people that need to be protected,

and the kingdom that needs to be advanced. And it is your and I's fight. My hope and my prayer, just to put my cards on the table, is I want you to walk out of this room this morning with the same way that I left that tournament with a little bit of swagger in my step going, man, maybe, just maybe, I can do this despite

my circumstances, despite what I've been told is true about me.

There's a warrior inside of you if you will see it. If you haven't been following along, let me catch you up in the book of Judges. Okay, the book of Judges is a really bizarre period of time in the nation of Israel's history. It's the only time in the Old Testament where they don't have a central leader. There's no king, there is no Moses, there's no person to lead them. And for four hundred years, the Bible says that every single person just did what was right in their own eyes. They did whatever they wanted to do. They were their own God. God was my truth. And I did what I wanted to do and you did what you wanted to do, but they just didn't follow God. And it would lead them into some really dark places.

And every now and then the nation of Israel would get desperate and they would call out for God and God would rise up a judge or a redeemer for his people. And he would bring them into a season of prosperity. Judges chapter six, we're gonna see the nation is again on the other side of

living in the consequences of their own poor decisions. And out of that hurt and out of that desperation, we're going to see this guy named Gideon show up. Judges chapter six, here's how the story begins in verse one. It says, The Israelites did evil in the Lord's sight. Okay, this is the cycle that is the book of Judges.

It says, So the Lord handed them over to the Midianites for seven years. It's important to note seven is the number of completion in the Bible. So after this season of difficulty was completed, this is what happens next. The Midianites were so cruel that the Israelites made hiding places for themselves in the mountains,

the caves and strongholds. Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the marauders from Midian, Amalek and the peoples East would attack Israel camping in the land and destroying crops as far away as Gaza. They left the Israelites with nothing to eat, taking all the sheep, the goats, the cattles, and the donkeys.

These enemy hordes coming with their life stock in tents were as thick as locusts. They arrived in droves of camels too numerous to count. And they stayed in the land until it was stripped bare. So Israel was reduced to starvation by the Midianites. Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help.

This is the picture of the nation of Israel and there are a lot of correlations to where I believe we are as a nation today. The Israelites were God's people.

They were supposed to be the people that showed the rest of the world who God was through them. Now, if you've been reading through the Bible in a year, which I hope you have, you should have been through the book of Deuteronomy by now.

And in the book of Deuteronomy, God told them what they were supposed to do in the promised land. They're now at the place that they were always supposed to be. And it wasn't like God just said, Hey, get there and then just kind of figure out how it goes. And good luck, bud. We'll see how you do. Like, no, no. God told them explicitly

what was gonna happen, who they were going to face, how they were supposed to live, what they were supposed to do. And he said, your temptation when you get there will be to just settle in and start looking like everybody else in the promised land. But you are a holy people.

You are my people. You are set apart. You are supposed to wage war with culture. You are supposed to advance the kingdom of God on this earth. He told them you were gonna face people in the promised land and it's gonna seem insurmountable. They will be bigger and they will be stronger but I am with you.

He told them when you conquer certain groups you will be tempted to look at their gods that are crafted out of gold and silver and you will be tempted to worship those same things.

You will be tempted to look at the things that they found value and worth in and you will be tempted to worship them. Don't worship them. Burn those gods to the ground because I'm your God. You're called to be different. You're called to be set apart. Yet the nation of Israel over and over and over and over again did

exactly what we do. Instead of being a holy people that are set apart, who are different and other than, and yes, they're in this world, but they are not of this world. Their value systems are different. They raise their kids different. Their marriage looks different. They run their businesses differently.

The truth is a lot of times when you look at the Christian's life, it's almost impossible to see any difference for the people who don't follow God and our lives look very similar. Why? Because it's easier to just blend in than it is to stand out.

It's easier to just settle into culture and not have people raise an eyebrow at us and go, why do you do things that way? And we begin to find value in things that are of this world and the danger becomes is when we do that, the church,

the people of God become pacified and they become handcuffed and we are no longer waging war. We are no longer protecting people. We are no longer fighting the enemy, we are just living amongst the enemy. The nation of Israel for seven years believed that what God's best for them was, was just living in caves,

starving to death. And I know today in America, we're not starving physically, but man our nation is starving spiritually. And I believe it's because the church has relegated themselves to just living in caves. Don't get me wrong, the Midianites were a powerful army. They were an army of hundreds of thousands.

But it never should have scared the nation of Israel because God had promised them he was with them. Yet here they are starving to death hiding in caves. Every dictator knows the way that you oppress people, the way that you keep them subjugated is you just take away their ability

to eat food. They'll never be strong enough to get together. They'll never be strong enough to fight back. They'll never be strong enough to think clearly. They'll never be strong enough to actually rally together and do something different and fight against us. If you just keep them starving,

they'll settle for anything. I think it is a picture of where we are as a nation. Spiritually, we are starving. The most biblically illiterate generation in the history of the world. And we wonder why culture keeps moving further and further and further away from God. We wonder

why culture keeps going further and further and further. Maybe just maybe it's because the church has forgotten that we are warriors. That there's a war to be fought. That there's an enemy to be defeated in a kingdom that needs to be advanced. And maybe the reason that we're losing our harvest,

we're losing our harvest spiritually is because we've lost our ability to worship corporately as a church. For the nation of Israel the harvest they were losing was people. For seven years they're sitting in caves going, Man, this is just our reality.

And it absolutely breaks my heart what the people of God are willing to settle for. It breaks my heart to see what the people of God who are supposed to be prosperous, who in John ten ten says that Jesus has come so you can have life and life abundantly.

I look at the reality of what most of us live in and the truth is it's far from abundant. My hope and my prayer today is to convince you that there's a warrior within you. That there is a person inside of you that can wage a holy

war. The people of Israel cry out. And here's how the story continues in verse seven. It says that when they cried out to the Lord because of Midian,

the Lord sent a prophet to the Israelites. This next part is really interesting because in the book of Judges, we'll see 12 different judges that God raises up to redeem the people of Israel. This is the only time before the Redeemer comes, before the judge comes, God sends a prophet. He sends them a person with a sermon

first. Going prophet. Prophet.

I'm

I drove I'm out your enemies and I gave you their land. Prophet. I told you, I am the Lord your God. You must not worship the gods of the Amorites and those whose land you now live. But you have not listened to me.

What is the sermon that the nation of Israel gets when they cry out for God to rescue them again? Again, this is the third time that this has happened already. God says, why do you so quickly forget who I am and more importantly, who you are in me?

You're asking, where did you go God? And I'm asking you, where did you go wrong? This shouldn't surprise you that you're here. Because you and I will always reap what we sow. The danger of choosing things other than God's best for us is oftentimes there are consequences with those decisions.

And then when the consequences come, we look up and go, God, why are you doing this to me? God, why are you letting this happen? And God's like, what are you talking about? You did this, not me. And I would venture to guess, I know God is sinless, but it seems like God is really frustrated.

God is getting tired of the cycle that he knows is gonna continue for a couple more hundred years, But he's telling them, You and I suffer from massive spiritual amnesia. Why do we so easily forget who God is in us?

Why do we forget what God has done? Why is it so easy to forget who we're supposed to be? Why is it so easy to just settle into playing church? Why is it so easy to almost live as if God doesn't exist? Jesus often looked at the crowds and the disciples and say, Why do you call me Lord

And then you don't do what I tell you to do and expect to live this abundant life. I'm telling you church, we need to be a people who raise again the standards of the holiness of God. Is God grace and love and mercy? Yes and amen. But He is also a vengeful

God full of wrath who hates sin and wants you and I to live the best life for us. But the danger is all around us is temptation to choose things other than God's best. But here's what I love about God. Though he should have, though he could have, he doesn't stop with the nation of Israel in his frustrated sermon.

He doesn't yell at them through this prophet and then say, off you go. Deal with this yourself. God still is faithful to rise up another Redeemer. Here's where we're gonna see our flawed hero of the day, Gideon, in the next verse.

It says, Then the angel of the Lord, okay, anytime in the Old Testament you see it says, The angel of the Lord, this is not just an angel. This is actually the pre incarnate Jesus. This is Jesus stepping out of heaven,

showing up in physical form. It only happens a few times in the Old Testament. And it can be a hard concept for us to understand because Christmas, we celebrate the birth of Jesus. And yes, that was the moment that he was born physically,

but Jesus has always been. He has always existed. He is not a created being. He is creator. And that really important junctures in the Old Testament, he would show up physically, which tells us that this scene is of massive importance. What is so important that Jesus would step out of heaven? We're about to see.

The angel of the Lord Jesus sat down beneath the great tree at Oprah. It's wild that Oprah is all the way back in the Old Testament, but that's a dad joke, I'm sorry. It's Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abiezer.

Gideon, son of Joash was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. Gideon understood that if I have anything good,

the Midianites are gonna come and steal it. What would be so important that Jesus would step out of heaven and show up to Gideon in a wine press. It was that the people of God had forgotten who they were.

The people of God had relegated their lives to living in caves and not being bold and proud with who they were supposed to be as his chosen people. Gideon is threshing wheat in a wine press. And you and I are like, what does that even mean?

Obviously you and I aren't wine or aren't threshing wheat anywhere, let alone in a wine press any longer. But this is not the place that you would have threshed wheat. Okay, the threshing of wheat was the final process where you would take the crop that was your wheat and you would separate the chaff from the wheat.

And literally what you would do is you would take the wheat, you would take the finalized product and you would throw it into the air and you would let wind come and the wind would blow away all the chaff, all the useless,

worthless parts of the crop, the wind would take it away and what would fall to the ground was the wheat that you would use for that year's harvest. But Gideon

is in a wine press. I wanna show you what a picture of a wine press is so you can have a visual of what we're talking about here. Okay, this is an actual excavated wine press they would have used. This hole down here is where all the grapes would have been that they would have walked on and stepped on and eventually the juice would have gotten high enough that it would flow down into the area that it would sit and ferment and become wine.

Gideon is in a hole hiding when God shows up on the scene. He's going through the impossibly frustrating task of throwing the wheat into the air in a hole with no wind. He's going through the motions, doing the stuff with zero effort or with zero output. There is no effectiveness.

Now this gets really interesting when you see where Gideon was supposed to be. I wanna show you what a threshing floor where Gideon is supposed to be doing this task. This is again

an ancient threshing floor where they would have done this process time and time again. Notice what it is. It's a wide open place on top of a hill. This process that Gideon was in where Jesus shows up in the Old Testament,

it begins to show us a really powerful picture if you can see it. Because Gideon was supposed to be doing this task on top of a hill so that everybody could see him. Boldly declaring who he was amongst the oppressors, amongst the difficult times.

Not hiding in a wine press believing that this was all God had for him. Gideon had forgotten that inside of him, just like all of us, there's a warrior within you. And that warrior is often most needed when times are the most difficult. What Gideon was supposed to do was to be the person

on the top of the hills that everybody could boldly see and watch and go, Man, look at that guy. Everything around him. All the circumstances with the Midianites, he should be cowering and hiding and afraid but he's not. Look at him. There's something different about him. That's not what Gideon's doing. Gideon is very much a coward in a wine press.

He's hiding. He's trying to make sure that nobody steals his crops and he convinced himself this is God's best for me. My fear is that the church

looks and feels a lot like Gideon in a wine press to the world where while the world is out there kind of falling apart, the church is inside of our caves and we're just kind of doing some frustrating tasks with not much output. And people are looking at us going, what are they doing?

What's happening? That's the most ineffective way to do this. I'm telling you friends, the world is desperate for the church to remember who we are. I wonder if you sitting here today, if Gideon was able to forget who he was, maybe just maybe you and I can forget who we are as well.

The reason that who you are is so important is because out of your identity, out of who you believe you are at your core, it will determine everything about your life. It will determine where you go, what you do, how you behave. Without a doubt, the most important question we will ever answer is who we are. It is not

a coincidence that the number one thing that the enemy is going after today is identity.

Trying to rob people of the truth of who they are. If you're sitting here today and you go, man, I'm not sure who I am. I wanna tell you what the Bible says about you. I wanna tell you who you are. Why I can so boldly stand up here and tell you that inside of you, even though you don't feel it, there's a warrior within you. There is a person inside of you that is built to advance the kingdom of God. That is built to fight the forces of evil. That is built to protect the people around you.

To defeat the enemy. In one Peter two, here's what the Bible says about you and I. It says that you and I are a chosen people. We're royal priests. We're a holy nation. We're God's very own possession.

Now here's the byproduct of getting to be that. As a result of that, we can show others the goodness of God for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. Who are you? You are a holy people. You are set apart. You are the righteousness

of God because he who knew no sin became sin so that you and I can become the righteousness of God. What is the byproduct of a Christian really truly understanding who they are? We begin to bring light into a really dark world. We are supposed to be a reflection of who Jesus is on this earth. The world is dark without

the light of Christ but the way that it shines brightest is through you and I. You know what Jesus said about this light that we're supposed to shine? Matthew chapter five, six and seven record

the Sermon on the Mount, the most important sermon Jesus ever preached. It literally is the manifesto of the kingdom. Here's what the kingdom of God is. And in there, he talks about this light that we're supposed to have. He says in Matthew chapter five, You are the light of the world.

You're a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. Nobody lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead a lamp is placed on a stand where it gives light to everyone in the house. Look what he says in verse 16. He says, In the same way,

let your good deed shine throughout for all to see so that everyone will praise your heavenly father. You are the light of the world. Why are you okay with just living in an existence with a basket over your light? You're supposed to be threshing wheat on top of the hill proudly proclaiming who your God is.

But the truth is that culture will always try to push us into the caves. Culture will always try to push us to the outskirts of society. They will always try to push us into the corner saying just stay over there. And I'm telling you friends, as we

allow our light to be covered up and we begin to settle into just being a mom or a doctor or a firefighter or whatever your profession is and you start to really lean into that part of your identity, you will begin to get more out of this life than it was ever meant to give you.

You will begin to reach for meaning and value and worth and significance in the things that you own instead of the kingdom that is coming. And the danger becomes, it becomes a really precarious thing to actually find and pursue.

Because the hard part is you'll want a house that's big enough that you're comfortable in, but not so big that it's like a pain in the butt to clean. You know what I mean? And it's this endless pursuit of trying to find meaning on this side of eternity. And the truth is that you and I were never meant for this world.

This is a fallen and broken world that we live in. But while we're here, we're supposed to be the light into the darkness. I'm telling you friends inside of you is a warrior that needs to wake up. It is a warrior that is supposed to go to battle.

That is supposed to advance the kingdom of God. That is supposed to fight the enemy. But the problem is is when we forget that we were built for that fight, we will begin to just fight the fights that are right in front of us.

Sometimes the reason that we get so frustrated with our spouse and we get so frustrated with our boss is because we think that's the primary fight. We think that's the main thing and I'm telling you it is not. As you and I learn to lean into the identity of who we really are as Christ's ambassadors,

as the light into the darkness, you know what the other thing he says before light? Jesus says you're the salt of the earth. You know salt's primary function in the first century? It preserved the decay of meat. You are supposed to be the force in the world that stops the decaying of culture.

Yet we think we'll just live in our corner and watch the world go further and further away.

Maybe, just maybe, there's a warrior within you. So if you're here and you go, man, all right, cool, this sounds great, what do we do? The rest of Gideon's story, these next couple points shows us how do we wake this warrior up. Here's how the story continues. Gideon's in the wine press. He's hiding and in verse 12, Jesus appears to him and he says to him,

Mighty hero, the Lord is with you. Here's the first thing that this proves to me if we're going to find the warrior within us. We need to learn to begin to see ourselves the way God sees us.

It's interesting to me that the first thing that Jesus says to Gideon in the middle of his hiding, in the middle of his mess, in the middle of his weakness, he shows up and tells him, You are a mighty hero. This is the beautiful part about who God is. God sees way more in you than you see in you.

God sees potential in you that you don't see. God sees abilities in you that you don't see. And we have to painstakingly learn to see ourselves the way that God sees us. We have to fight to see ourselves the way that God sees us. We have to surround ourselves with people who remind us of what God sees in us.

We have to have a spouse that primary function is to encourage us and to build us up and to not call the moments that we've made mistakes and make those the primary things, but to remind us of who we are in Christ. It's why church and worship is so important because we come into places like this and we remember,

yes, I've made mistakes. Yes, I'm hiding right now. And yes, I'm scared. That's not how God sees me. For those of us who have given our lives to Jesus and accepted the free gift of the cross, the theological term is called propitiation. God no longer sees you in your mess even though you and I are a mess.

Even in our own we hide, we run, we flee, we cower, we let our insecurities overwhelm us. That's not how God sees us. He sees us through the lens of the cross. Between us and God he sees the finished and completed work of the cross and in Jesus we are complete. It's why Jesus on the cross said, It is finished.

Though our journey, our process is far from finished, in God's eyes it is finished. How do you see yourself? Do you see yourself primarily the way that God sees you or do you just see yourself based on all the things that you've done and the mistakes you continue to have?

The choices you continue to choose that are far from God's best for you. Part of how the church wakes back up to who we're supposed to be is we have to fight to see ourselves the way God sees us. He tells Gideon,

You're a mighty hero. Here's how the story continues in verse 13. Gideon says, Sir, if the Lord is with us, why has all of this bad stuff happened to us? Where are all the miracles that our ancestors told us about? Didn't they say that the Lord brought us up out of Egypt?

But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites. Then the Lord turned to him and he said, Go with the strength that you have and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you. But Gideon again in verse 15 says, how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh

and I am the least in my entire family. I love this exchange because man, I can relate to Gideon. God shows up and says, you're a mighty warrior. And Gideon's like, that's cute. But I got some questions. If you're real and if you're really the God that my ancestors talked about, why is all of this bad stuff happening?

If you're really good, how can all of this bad stuff happen? And aren't you supposed to be like a genie in a bottle? And when I ask you to do something, you go bam miracle. I've been asking and there's been no miracles. I'm still frustrated. My family's still the weakest clan.

And the part that's really interesting is that Jesus doesn't address any of Gideon's concerns. And this can be the frustrating part of following God on this side of eternity. I'll be honest with you. It can be really frustrating when you have really big questions and we don't necessarily have the answers for them.

Why is there so much evil in this world? If God was good, why didn't he just get rid of it all? There are questions that I've asked. There are questions that you've asked. If God was really good, why didn't he just get rid of it all? And this is the frustrating part about free will.

This is the tension that God himself lives in because he's given you and I free choice and free will. And the problem with that is it gives us the ability to choose other than God's best for us. If there's going to be real love, there has to be the choice for hate.

If there's gonna be good, there has to be the choice for bad. And part of the tension that God lives in is watching his creation choose things other than what's best for him. But the good news is that God doesn't leave us there. We're not in this perpetual

spin dry of just trying to be good versus bad. God is in the process of restoring all of it and bringing it all together. But while we're here, there will be some questions you won't be able to answer. Because God is God and you're not. And I'm not saying that it makes it easier,

but sometimes we just have to come to the understanding that you will never 100% be able to wrap your head completely around who God is and why he does what he does. Because if you could,

I would argue that God would no longer be God. He would be some concept and figment of your imagination that your brain can completely encapsulate. Part of what's frustrating is that we will never know some of the biggest questions, some of the biggest answers to the questions that we have.

But God just sends us to Gideon, then you've got all kinds of excuses. But you undervalue because of your excuses, because of your insecurities, all of those things are true about you. But you undervalue the strength that you do have. Notice what he does say to Gideon.

He says, I know you're the weakest tribe. I know you're the smallest one in your family and the Midianites killed your brother, right? It tells us in another part of the Bible. Like Gideon has real reasons to be afraid. He has real reasons to be frustrated with God. And the problem is our excuses and our insecurities,

they will keep us handicapped forever. But God gives him what I believe is the second thing we need to do if we're going to really awake the warrior within us. At some point friends, we gotta drop the excuses and we need to learn to go in the strength that we do have.

I believe sitting in this room are people who, man, you have some incredible giftings. God has gifted you with the gift of prayer, the gift of hospitality. You put your hand to a business and it just flourishes. For whatever reason, God has wired you a really specific way.

And I wonder what would happen to the church if the people of God would just start with what they do have. And they started in the strength that they do have. And I know you might not be able to fix all the problems tomorrow, but you can start with your family and your community and your home, your soul.

And if you start with the strength that you do have, I promise you God will be faithful to do the heavy lifting. God will be faithful to do the rest. I wanna give you a really simple practical

way. How do we go in the strength that we do have? Well look, here's a really simple thing that we can do. In two weeks, we're having 12 Easter services. I don't even know what happens after 12 services except that you die. That's a lot of services.

But the reason that we're doing it is because friends, this is our Super Bowl as Christians. The fact that Jesus,

the tomb is empty, that he is not there, he is still not dead means that there's hope for the world. You got an invite card when you came in here. Here's a really simple practical way that you can begin to go on the strength that you do have. Ask God, God who's one person? Don't just randomly give it out. Sit down and pray and say, God would you show me one person at work, in my family, in my neighborhood

that I can just invite to Easter?

The staggering part is the data tells us that if somebody is just invited, oftentimes they will come. And then you can leave it at that and make Bill do all the heavy lifting up here. He'll tell them about who Jesus is. All you gotta do is invite him. It's a really simple way, it's not the only way but it's a simple way that we can begin to go in the strength that we

do have. I wonder what strength you do have that because of your insecurities and because of your excuses you're overlooking and you're robbing the kingdom of God of a powerful weapon that can be used to advance the cause of Christ. Here's how the story starts to wrap up. After this whole excuses thing in verse 15,

verse 16, the Lord says to him, I will be with you.' And you are going to destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man. I love this story because Gideon is so full of excuses and God tells him the way that you overcome your insecurities,

the way that you overcome your excuses of why God can't use you is just remembering that God is with you. That you're not fighting this alone. You have always fought from a position of victory, not for victory. The battle is already won. The kingdom of heaven wins the war. God is telling Gideon, Gideon, this is predecided.

You don't realize it yet but I've already won this battle for you. This is already done. He says you are going to defeat the Midianites, the hundreds of thousands of soldiers' army. You're going to defeat them as if you're fighting one

man. And man, I wish I had time to go through the whole rest of Gideon's story and how the battle unfolds and what happens and how God takes Gideon. He goes out and gets 30,000 men. He's like, all right, let's do this thing. God says, no, you have too many people. He's like, 30,000? They've got 150,000.

What do mean I have too many? God says, ask them if they're afraid. Ask them if they're scared. They can go home. 20,000 of them are like, yep, I'm scared. So now Gideon has 10,000 men. And then God says, take them down to the river and have them drink water.

And the men who drink like dogs, send them home. And Gideon's left with 300 men. It's the weirdest battle plan ever. And God says with the 300,

now you can go fight the army of 150,000. Why? Because God wants us to understand the victory, the battle, it's already won. You don't have to try to do it. God is not trying to do something so that you can get the victory. The part that I love about my story with Ricky Fowler is that he beat me in the end. I lost.

But it didn't matter. The outcome didn't matter because what I gained in the process was worth its weight in gold. What if we started to see victory not as some future end result, but we just started to see this the faithfulness of today.

We started to see, you know what? What is the battle that I can win? It's not some future far off thing. It is faithfulness today.

It is fighting the battles that are in front of me today. And I don't know what your battle is, but I know we all have one. We all have a battle to fight. We have a kingdom that needs to be advanced. We have an enemy that must be defeated and the people that need to be protected.

I'm telling you friends there's a warrior within you if you'll see it. Here's the last thing I want you to write down. Refuse to let the fear of failure stop you. I wrote in my notes this way, every warrior's greatest fear is always gonna be failure. But the greatest pain is regret.

Don't let the fear of failure stop you from getting into the fight. We could always fail. It's always a possibility. But when we know that the outcome is already predetermined, why are we so worried about failing?

Why are we so worried about what happens? God is faithful to see us through. I'm not asking you to know it all and do it all. Just be faithful to do your part and watch what begins to happen as the warrior within you wakes up. I want to tell you how our story ends. I don't know if you've read the end of the book.

The end of the book tells us how this whole thing ends, how all of this stuff ends, what the final moment is where the second coming of Christ will be. This is the end that we must live from the vantage point of understanding this is already the predetermined end. This is how it all ends anyway. So why don't we fight? Here's what the end is friends. I wrap up with this. Revelations chapter 19.

There's a day that is coming. John had a vision and it's the second coming of Jesus. Then I saw heaven opened up and a white horse was standing there. Its rider was named Faithful and True.

For he judges fairly and wages a righteous war. His eyes were like flames of fire and on his head were many crowns. A name was written on him that no one understood except himself.

He wore a robe dipped in blood and his title was the word of God. The armies of heaven dressed in the finest of pure white linen, they followed him on white horses. From his mouth came a sharp sword to strike down the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod. He will release the

fierce wrath of God, the Almighty like juice flowing from a winepress. And on his robe and on his thighs it will be written this title, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. How does all of this end?

Jesus came once as a lamb. He's coming again as a conquering king. And across his thighs will be written, Lord of lords and king of kings. You wanna tell me I can't get tattoos? Jesus is coming back tatted and ready for war. If it's cool for him, it's cool for me, all right?

How does all of this end? There's a day where Jesus comes back and he's victorious. The evil that is in our world, the forces of darkness that are approaching on the church, they're already defeated. They are already handcuffed. You are not fighting for victory, you're fighting from it.

So let the warrior wake up within you. Engage again in the battle in your home. Engage again in the battle in your culture, in your community, in your schools. Because if we don't do it, I'm telling you the data is alarming. Our kids and our kids' kids' futures,

they depend on it. It is not someone else's fight, friends. It is yours and it is mine. If you will allow him, God will awaken a warrior within you. And the world better watch out when the church remembers who we are. So Father I ask,

God with every single person in here. God I know that there's all kinds of battles that we need to wage war with. All types of things that we've just been allowing to be in our world and in our homes that we've gotten comfortable with. And the truth is, God, we need to start fighting again.

We need to allow you to wake up the warrior within us. Father, would you stir something in us right now? Would you awaken the people of God to be again the light into the darkness? And it can be daunting because God light is most often needed in the darkest places.

Father, would you allow us the honor and privilege of getting to be used by you? Would you remind us that all of this is temporary? It's all failing. We could walk out of this place today, car, get in a car accident and die on our way home. God, nobody has promised the next moment.

Would we stop thinking that we have forever? That we'll do it someday? God, would you put urgency on the heart of your people to advance the cause of Christ, to wage war again, to protect the people.

Jesus, I thank you for people who are willing to take the fight. It is in the mighty name of Jesus all God's people said. Amen and amen. Hey, you guys are amazing. Thank you for hanging out with us. Thanks for joining us online this weekend.

Let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on the We Are Rock Point app for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.