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Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany
Light of Christ Anglican Church
The Rev. Michael Moffitt, Feburary 7, 2016


Not in Our Own Strength


Text: Judges 16:11–24

In his book “Wild at Heart” author and speaker John Eldridge tells the story of taking his two sons rock climbing. At one point his oldest son, 11 or 12 yrs. old if I remember correctly, scampered up the rock face to the top actually scaring Eldridge a little because it was so dangerous. He explained to his son why he needed to be more careful but then said to him, “You’re a wild man.” He recounts that later that evening as he was saying good night to his sons the oldest asked to speak to him privately and said, “Do you really think I’m a wild man?” Eldridge knew that his son was asking an important question and that he had the opportunity to affirm his son as a man. Clearly, his son needed to know that this was how Eldridge saw him and it gave him permission to live into who God had created him to be, a man who was fearless and had an adventurous spirit. It seems that our culture wishes little boys would be more like little girls instead of encouraging them to live into how God created them.

Often who God created us to be is far different than how we perceive ourselves or how others perceive us. In our Old Testament reading this morning we read the beginning of the story of Gideon. Let’s consider a little of the background to what is going on leading up to this story. Listen to Judges 6:1–6:

6 “The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. 2 Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. 3 Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. 4 They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. 5 They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count them or their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it. 6 Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help.”

Israel found themselves in this terrible situation because they had forgotten all that God had done for them and had turned and began to worship the god of the Amalekites. Instead of continuing to teach and remind themselves and their children how God had led them out of slavery in the land of Egypt and had provided all that they needed in the promised they had sinned against God and turned and followed other gods who were not gods at all. God’s righteous judgment fell on them as a nation. However, God in His covenant faithfulness responds to their cries and comes to them as the Angel of the Lord and that is where our story begins this morning.

Our story begins with Gideon hidden down in a wine press because Israelite farmers were no longer able to winnow their wheat in the open air where the breeze could catch it and separate the chaff from the wheat. There was fear that wandering Midianites would come and once again steal their food and possibly injure or kill them. As Gideon crouches down in a hollow in the ground the Angel of the Lord greets him, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior!”

Actually Gideon would appear to be anything but a mighty warrior as he hides in the wine press and like the rest of Israel Gideon had become accustomed to living in fear instead of receiving what God had offered them, his blessings and provision as a nation if they would worship him. At this point he cannot see or understand that God is coming to the rescue and that part of that is revealing to Gideon who God has made him to be. This is a common theme in stories from the Scriptures. Remember Moses when God calls him to go to Egypt to confront Pharaoh and demand that he let the children of Israel leave Egypt.

“So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” Exodus 3:10–11

Moses was unable to see himself in the role that God was calling him to and he wouldn’t until he moved in obedience and the power of God was revealed through him.

Gideon clearly doesn’t understand the strange greeting that the angel gives and he chooses to not take the greeting of the angel of the Lord personally but instead to challenge the truth of the greeting.

“Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his 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.”

It shows a complete lack of understanding of Israel’s sin of unfaithfulness to God and a serious lack of understanding of the law of God but the angel doesn’t feel the need to answer the objection because the prophet had already made it clear why Israel had fallen into the hands of the Midianites. Instead the angel now revealed as the Lord (the Christ figure from the Old Testament) responds,

“Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”

This statement may seem amazingly ironic but instead I believe it is prophetic of what God will make of Gideon in the future. At this point Gideon couldn’t conceive of what God was about to do through him but could only see his humble state and so he replies,

15 “Pardon me, my lord, but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”

16 The Lord answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.”

We don’t have time this morning to talk about the entire story of Gideon but suffice it to say that God was telling Gideon that he would be the one to strike down all of the Midianites of which there were over 160,000. The way that God instructed Gideon to win a battle against the Midianites was to take 300 Israelites and have them break up into 3 companies of 100 each and surround the hill side around their encampment and then do the following.

“Dividing the three hundred men into three companies, he placed trumpets and empty jars in the hands of all of them, with torches inside.

17 “Watch me,” he told them. “Follow my lead. When I get to the edge of the camp, do exactly as I do. 18 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.’”

19 Gideon and the hundred men with him reached the edge of the camp 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. 20 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!” 21 While each man held his position around the camp, all the Midianites ran, crying out as they fled”

The Lord had placed fear in the hearts of the Midianites and when Gideon and his band of merely 300 chose to obey the seemingly insane instructions of the Lord they were able to watch as 160,000 Midianites reacting in fear and panic turned and fought one another in the dark and all of them were defeated that night.

For those of you here today who were in the military; is this a sound battle plan? What made Gideon become willing to follow such an outrageous battle strategy? I believe that it was because he was finally willing to live into the calling that the Angel of the Lord had revealed to him; he was called to be a mighty warrior but one who fought using the strategy of the one who called him.

Like John Eldridge discovered about his son, it’s good to know who you are and to be able to live into that.

Nine years ago I had just begun a career change that seemed ludicrous to me. I had gone from being an over the road truck driver to the Associate Rector of Church of the Holy Spirit - Orchard Hills in Roanoke. I found the transition unsettling and so 4 months into the job I decided to take a week and spend it at a friend’s beach house at Sunset Beach, N.C. My goal was to spend the week inquiring of God as to who I was to him, how did he view my calling. I prayed all week and got nothing but frustrated and by the time we headed home on Sunday I was miserable and had probably made Teresa miserable too. I like things to make sense in a rational, understandable way, a way that I can explain to others without them looking at me like I have two heads.

On Monday morning around 3 am the Lord woke me up and began speaking to me more clearly than I had ever experienced. I had to get up and write down what he was saying to me and I filled up 2 ½ pages. He began by saying, “You are my warrior” and then he explained what that meant to him. I should see myself like one of the Knights of the Round Table in the fictional King Arthurs Court. I was to give my life in honor to my King and be about building His kingdom, which would include going after those things that had been stolen from Him. Now knowing who I was changed my life forever and I have been in the process of living into that calling ever since then. We need to know who we are in Christ so that we can live into that.

Let’s consider briefly our Gospel reading for this morning from Luke 5: 1–11. Luke is recounting the story of Jesus calling His first disciples.

“One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. 2 He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.”

In this story Simon, soon to be called Peter, was probably listening to what Jesus was saying to the people and when Jesus asked to sit in Simon’s boat to get away from the people crowding around him it probably didn’t seem like an unreasonable request and at this point Simon would not have felt threatened or even uncomfortable. However, when Jesus finished speaking he turned to Simon and starts to meddle. He says,

“Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”

Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”

Now by this point Jesus had become fairly well known at least enough to attract a very large crowd and it’s likely that Simon would have heard of this carpenter who had become an itinerant preacher of some sort. Simon was probably fairly sure that Jesus wasn’t a fisherman and may have resented the request to cast the nets when he and the other fisherman had no success after working hard all night. Daytime was not the best time for fishing but for some reason Simon decided to do what Jesus asked. The result was a catch that was so big that it began to tear the nets. Even after loading two boats with fish they began to sink. Peter by choosing to obey the request of Jesus put himself in the position to see and experience firsthand an amazing miracle of God. The result was that he was convicted of his sinful lifestyle and felt exposed in front of true holiness. Jesus did not chastise him for being sinful but instead cast the vision as to who and what he would become. Jesus was revealing that he saw Simon for what he would become not for who he had been. The result was that Simon Peter, James and John left their boats, all the fish, plus everything that their lifestyle had offered to follow Jesus. They would become his constant companions for the next 3 years and would be the main ones to begin and build the early church all because Jesus told them who they were and demonstrated his authority over even nature, which is theme that Luke returns to often.

Just like at the wedding feast at Cana in John 2 where Jesus changes the water into wine and the Lord’s instruction to Gideon in Judges 6 as how to defeat the Midianites, we see again in this gospel story that God will move in extraordinary power when those that he has asked to do something relatively simple choose to obey Him. These stories also show us that we cannot encounter the living God without it changing us forever. I believe that these stories teach us that we should be obedient to whatever the call of God is on our lives for 3 three reasons.

  1. As our creator God, He has authority over all of creation, which includes us. However, as our creator he also knows how we will find perfect peace only as we live into what we were created for. We were created to have fellowship with our God and live according to His plan for our lives. During our Lenten gatherings on Thursday night’s we will be eating soup and discussing what it means to that we are called “the image of God” and how we are to reflect and live into that.
  2. It is through obedience to the call and commands of God that we will be able to see him work through us to accomplish things that are well outside of our abilities. When we choose to obey the direction of God then we get a ringside seat to the miraculous. As we pointed out earlier, Gideon and all of Israel had grown accustomed to living in weakness, fear and hunger and had lost the ability to believe that God had called them to something much greater. When we are obedient to whatever God calls us to do then it removes the barriers that our sin sets up against God’s blessing and it removes the power of darkness from our minds and hearts.
  3. It is only when we are obedient to the call and commands of God that we are able to demonstrate to a lost world that there is a living God that they are responsible to worship and obey. Our calling is to demonstrate that the kingdom of God has come. Remember the question from Luke 7 that John the Baptist while in prison sent his followers to ask Jesus. “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect another?” Jesus’ answer reflects our mission as his body the church.

“Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.”

Jesus did not say, “Yes I’m the one” but instead had them report the evidence that the kingdom that John had been announcing had indeed come. This is to be the evidence that we present too but it will not come to a disobedient people as we can see through this morning story about Gideon.

Remember the promise from our reading from Psalm 85: 7–9,

Show us your unfailing love, Lord, and grant us your salvation.

8 I will listen to what God the Lord says; he promises peace to his people, his faithful servants— but let them not turn to folly.

9 Surely his salvation is near those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land.

We are living in a time where Christianity is seen as merely another belief system and their God as one of many if there are any gods at all. The modern church by in large has stopped preaching and teaching the true gospel of Jesus and because of that there is no power in their words or in their lives. We have a generation or possibly two that have lost all context of what Christ did on the cross and it is seen as mythology, if it is seen at all. The fact is that the Bible remains a top selling book and crosses are worn as jewelry not as identification or as tattoos but not as a testimony for what is believed. We have settled for misery and compromise and this is not the way of the cross. How will this dark moment in our history change? The same way that the early church brought revival and change to an equally dark moment in history. When God’s people humble themselves and pray and commit themselves to live in obedience to the call of God on their lives then God will move in our midst in a way that demonstrates that he is alive and well.

This is why we are here and this is why we have been gathering to pray together on Wednesday’s and have declared a day of prayer and fasting on the 1st Tuesday of every month. I believe that God has called us together for such a time as this. Ask him who you are to him and live into that calling. It changes everything!

©2016 The Rev. Mike Moffitt

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