Faith & Weakness
Hebrews 11:32-34 & Judges 6:1-16
Main Idea: The way of enduring faith is the way of weakness
I. Asking the Wrong Question (6:1-10)
The “Judges Cycle” begins again with the people of Israel sinning & undergoing oppression from the Midianites. They devoured their crops and livestock and left them “with no sustenance” (6:4) to eat or sell for economic gain. They are starving and forced to hide out in caves, being brought “very low” (6:6).
The people of Israel cry out for a deliverer, but God sends them a prophet; they want a savior, but he sends them a sermon. This prophet is a rebuke to the Isrealites that before they cry out for deliverance from their circumstances, they ought to be asking: “Why are we here in the first place?”
There are two issues that the people of Israel are missing:
They have regret, but not repentance (cf. 2 Cor. 7:10)
They see no issue with their “worship” of God combined with idolatry
II. Assuming the Wrong Reality (6:11-13)
Before the people “listen” (6:10) or truly repent, God sends an “Angel of the Lord” to Gideon. Even though he is hiding out in a hole in fear, he greets him as “O mighty man of valor.” This is how the Lord works: he names us & then he conforms us to that name
Abram & Sarai become Abraham (father of a multitude) & Sarah (princess)
Jacob (liar & deceiver) becomes Israel (he strives with God)
Simon becomes Peter (rock)
We become “citizens and saints,” adopted sons & daughters, & “co-heirs” with Christ
Gideon assumes that the circumstance & the situation that the Israelites find themselves in means that God is not with them. He is assuming that they are forsaken since they are suffering & facing hardship. Likewise, we often believe a sort of “pseudo-prosperity gospel.”
We often cry out “Lord, please remove this problem” rather than praying: “Lord, please make me the kind of person of character who can handle this problem.”
III. Accepting Our Weakness (6:14-16)
Gideon assumes his weakness & his “smallness” are an obstacle for God’s work in his life, failing to realize that his weakness is actually a conduit for the Lord’s grace and power.
“Everything that Gideon needs is supplied in this brief statement: ‘But I will be with you’… Basically, God has nothing else or more to offer you. You can go through a lot with that promise. It does not answer your questions about details. It only provides the essential. Nothing about when or how or where or why. Only the what, or, better, the Who. ‘But I will be with you.’ And that is enough.” ~ Dale Ralph Davis
2 Corinthians 12:7-10: So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
By the end of his life, Gideon is a mixed bag of faithful moments along with devastating sin. Gideon is ultimately an imperfect, broken, picture of what we all really need in Christ. Jesus came to us in weakness and embraced our weakness as his own on the cross “for the joy that was set before him” (Heb. 12:2).
