In the summer of 2018, I went with a group on a tour of the Holy Lands. The tour was a progression of one powerful moment after the next. We stood on Mt. Nebo and looked into the Promised Land. We participated in a pilgrim’s baptism in the Jordan River. We swam in the sea of Galilee. We walked on the Temple Mount. We watched the sunrise on the Mount of Olives. We prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.
I want to take you to one of these places and invite you into a powerful moment. One the day our groups traveled from Galilee to Jerusalem we stopped at the Spring of Herod in the Jezreel Valley. When we arrived there, I did not recognize the Spring of Herod as a biblical reference. Our guide reminded us that the Spring of Herod is the place where Gideon and his army camped before they attacked the Midianites.
I put my feet in the water and thought about what happened there. I thought about being one of those three hundred men. When they set up camp at that spring there were 32,000 of them. The spring was a place of fear. God sent home the 22,000 who were afraid. It was a place of decision, go home or go to battle. It was a place of not being enough. God sent home another 9,700 and kept the 300. That is not enough. The spring is a place of too much. The Midianites had an army of 135,000(8:10). That is a ratio of 1 Israelite for every 450 Midianite. That is too much.
We are all too familiar with not enough and too much. We know what it feels like to have not enough money at the end of the month, not enough patience with the kids, not enough courage to follow through with convictions, not enough discernment to make right decisions, not enough faith, not enough energy, not enough compassion, not enough intelligence, and not enough time.
We know what too much feels like. We have too much work to get done, too much pain to endure, too much disfunction to reconcile the relationship, too much craving to fight the addiction, too much fear, too much negativity, too much to accomplish, too much against us.
Put your feet in the water of the Spring of Herod. Feel the not enough, feel the too much, and trust the God who is enough. As we cool ourselves by the peaceful spring we can hear God tell us that we don’t need to be enough when we are surrendered to the God who is enough.
Gideon’s story is full of fear. As we move through his story, we see the not enough, the too much, and the God who is enough.
TOO MUCH!
The Israelites were facing overpowering opposition!
Judges 6:1-6 The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years. And the hand of Midian overpowered Israel, and because of Midian the people of Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds. For whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them. They would encamp against them and devour the produce of the land, as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel and no sheep or ox or donkey. For they would come up with their livestock and their tents; they would come like locusts in number—both they and their camels could not be counted—so that they laid waste the land as they came in. And Israel was brought very low because of Midian. And the people of Israel cried out for help to the Lord.
These are the situations that are beyond your control, that don’t have answers, there is no plan, there is no progress, there are no resources, it is too much, we are not enough, our best efforts seem to come to nothing, and we get scared. In first four parts of this sermon series, we have seen a future that is too intimidating, religious persecution that is too strong, and loss that is too devastating.
Put your feet in that cool water. Can you trust God to be enough when you know that your opposition is too much for you?
We don’t need to be enough when we are surrendered to the God who is enough.
GOD IS ENOUGH!
God reminded them that he was enough in the past and he still is!
They cried out to God (v.7) and he sent a prophet who reminded them that God was enough in the exodus from Egypt (vv.8-9). Then he reassured them, “I am the Lord your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.” (v.10).
Put your feet in that cool water. Tell yourself that God is enough. Hear God say to you, “I am the Lord your God; you shall not fear.”
We don’t need to be enough when we are surrendered to the God who is enough.
NOT ENOUGH!
Gideon felt his weakness!When God called Gideon, he found him in a winepress threshing wheat (v.11). A winepress is a place to press grapes, not to thresh wheat. But Gideon felt his weakness and he was hiding from the Midianites. Ironically, the angel addressed him by saying, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.” (v.12). Gideon complained that they were forsaken by God (v.13). God said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” The might that Gideon had was that God was with him. When God is with us, he looks at our weakness and sees valor.
Gideon’s objection of God’s call was rooted in Gideon not being enough.
Judges 6:15 And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”
God’s response to Gideon’s objection was about God being enough.
Judges 6:15 And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”
Are you tempted to look at your weakness? Do you feel disqualified by the disadvantages of your past or your heritage? We are not enough. This fact does not disqualify us from doing what God has called us to do.
Put your feet in that cool water. Are you ok with being weak? Are you ok knowing that you are not enough?
We don’t need to be enough when we are surrendered to the God who is enough.
GOD IS ENOUGH!
Gideon needed more evidence that God was enough. He asked for a sign (v.17). He wanted to know that it was really God he was talking to.
Gideon made food and brought it to the Angel of the Lord (v.19). The Angel of the Lord told him to put it on a rock then he touched it with a stick (vv.20-21). So far, there was nothing to verify that it was God or that God was enough. But then “fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes. And the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight.” (v. 21). That wasn’t normal. That doesn’t happen when I touch food with a stick. Gideon got it; this was the power of God (v.22). God wants us to know that he is at work. Have you seen any signs? Any evidence that God is enough?
The whole encounter shook Gideon up. God said to him, “Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die.” (v.23). You have a power against you that is too much. You are not enough. Still, God looks at you and says, “Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die.”
Judges 6:24 Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it, The Lord Is Peace.
Put your feet in that cool water. Will you let God be your peace even though you are not enough?
We don’t need to be enough when we are surrendered to the God who is enough.
TOO MUCH!
God called Gideon from that place of peace into a work that was too much for him. It began with tearing down the idols of the people (vv.25-26). Gideon did it, but not without fear. He took ten men and did the work at night “because he was too afraid of his family and the men of the town.” (v.27).
When the people woke up it just got scarier. The people said to Joash (Gideon’s father), “Bring out your son, that he may die, for he has broken down the altar of Baal and cut down the Asherah beside it.” (v.30). Joash convinced the people that Baal could content for himself (v.31). Then the people changed Gideon’s name to Jerubbaal, meaning, “Let Baal contend against him.” Do you see what just happened? Before accepting the call of God Gideon had the Midianites against him. After taking down the idols Gideon also had his own people and their false gods against him.
It was at that time the “Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East came together, and they crossed the Jordan and encamped in the Valley of Jezreel.” (v.33). Everyone was against him!
This was way too much for Gideon but he had surrendered to a God who is enough. Notice what happened to the man who was not enough.
Judges 6:34 But the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon, and he sounded the trumpet, and the Abiezrites were called out to follow him.
Come back to the spring. Put your feet in that cool water. How do you feel about everyone being against you but God? Can you imagine what it would be like to stand against the opposition that is too much and be clothed with the Spirit of the Lord? Do you prefer to hide in the winepress or to be exposed and clothed in the Spirit of the Lord?
We don’t need to be enough when we are surrendered to the God who is enough.
GOD IS ENOUGH!
Gideon needed another sign. He did his double fleece test (6:36-40) in order to know that God would save Israel through his hand. Both times God did exactly what Gideon was asking him to do to confirm the calling. God was patiently telling him that he (God) was enough.
NOT ENOUGH!
At the beginning of chapter 7 we come to the Spring of Herod.
God spoke to Gideon there. Notice the irony of his words.
Judges 7:2 The Lord said to Gideon, “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand…”
They were too few to defeat the Midianites on their own but too many for God to work with. When we are feeling not enough God says we are still too much. God isn’t looking for more of us. He is looking for less of us. Self gets in the way of God’s work.
God explained why they were too many.
Judges 7:2 “…lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’”
There is a danger when we think that we might be enough. When we feel strong in ourselves, we might feel comfortable, but God feels nervous. When we feel strong, we risk forgetting that we live because he is enough. We’re never enough to accomplish the work on our own. But we might be too much for God to be willing to work the miracle.
The thing keeping us from freedom is not that we are not enough but that we are too much. When we cling to our little bits of self-sufficiency it keeps us from fully depending on God.
God led the army through two rounds of cuts. First the 22,000 fearful men went home(v.3). The fearful missed out on the miracle. Then God said, “The people are still too many.” (v.4). He separated those who lapped from those who knelt. He sent home the 9,700 and kept the 300.
When your strength is reduced you might think it is not enough, but God thinks it is just right. Our weakness is the perfect condition for him to work. The 32,000 would have required skill and strategy. The 300 required a miracle. There is nothing wrong with your gifts and assets and skills until they lead you to believe that you are enough without God.
Go back to the spring. Are you willing to let God reduce the too much of self that he finds in you?
GOD IS ENOUGH!
That night God gave the command, “Arise, go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hand.” (v.9). God had already proved himself through the three signs that Gideon requested. But he knew Gideon’s heart and he graciously added the instruction, “But if you are afraid” go down and be strengthened by what they are saying.” Along with God’s command is the evidence that he is enough. Gideon went down and learned that God had put a fear into the people he was afraid of. The things that cause us to tremble look at our God and tremble. He returned to camp and said, “Arise, for the Lord has given the host of Midian into your hand.” (v.15).
God was enough. He turned the sword of the Midianites on themselves. The 300 defeated the 135,000. God is enough!
Put your feet in that cool water. Stop trying to be enough. That is the wrong goal. Put that energy toward a full surrender to God.
We don’t need to be enough when we are surrendered to the God who is enough.