Faith = Belief X Action | Crossroads Church

I think one of the biggest lies many of us believe is that our past, our mistakes, our limitations, or even our current situation disqualifies us from being used by God. Maybe you look at your life and you're not yet who you want to be. Maybe you're not even fully confident you ever will be. Hear me, I wanna encourage you with something and I pray this penetrates your soul. God is not searching for the perfect person for his perfect will. He chooses the willing person, the person willing to say yes, the person willing to take the next step forward to go in the strength you have. God will do far more with your willingness than he cares to do with your perfection. My name is Miko, by the way. Thanks for tapping in with us here on the Pando app. Today, we're jumping into a brand new series called Origin Stories. The next few weeks, we're gonna take a look at ordinary men and women who encountered an extraordinary God and how those encounters changed everything. And this week, we have our very own Chuck Mingo. Chuckie! You'll be kicking this off with the story of Gideon in the Bible. Gideon was an ordinary man

whose faith zigzagged between fear and trust, yet God patiently met him every step of the way. His story reminds us that faith isn't about never doubting. It's about continuing to trust God even when your confidence rises and falls. You've ever doubted that a God could use someone like you? This one's for you. An origin story is the part nobody talks about, the part before confidence and success, before anyone knows your name. It's false starts, wrong turns, and total failure. It's the beginning. Every person you admire has one. The Bible may just be the greatest origin story ever told. It's a book about how God meets people at the beginning. In the beginning, God creates. In the beginning, humanity is formed from dust. In the beginning, there is possibility, purpose, and relationship. Then things fall apart, but God rebuilds and enlists humanity in the work of restoration. The Bible is full of people who eventually become known for things like faith and courage, wisdom and sacrifice. We call them heroes of the faith, but none of them started there. The story God tells is about him meeting ordinary people in ordinary places and inviting them into something extraordinary.

Today's origin story is about Gideon, a fearful worker who became a warrior. Okay, now this is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down. So I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there. I'll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel Air. Let's try this one. In West Philadelphia, born and raised, on the playground is where I spent most of my days chilling out, maxing, relaxing, or cooling, or shooting some b-ball outside of the school when a couple of guys, they were up to no good, started making trouble in my neighborhood. I got in one little fight and my mom got scared. You finished? Look at that, look at that, look at that. I think you could wake me up in the middle of the night, put a gun to my head, and I could rap that song. Like I just, it just does it for me. Hey, I'm Chuck, if we've not met, I'm one of the teaching pastors here at Crossroads. And I started with that because it's fun, but also because Will Smith is telling an origin story. And today we're kicking off a new series called Origin Stories. Our God is a God who does extraordinary things through ordinary people. And I'm really glad about that. So today we're gonna hear about a guy named Gideon,

who's one of those ordinary people. I don't know what comes to mind when you think about heroes of the faith. If you're like me, you probably think about people who like, you know, they woke up on the right side of the bed. They were praying when they got out of bed and they were like running after God. They never wavered, they never shook. And I wanna tell you, whatever you have in your mind as a prototypical biblical leader, that ain't Gideon. That ain't Gideon. And it's why I like his story, because Gideon is like me. Gideon is like us. This is a guy who is imperfect. His following of God is messy. It's not up and to the right all the time. He's unsure lots of the time, and yet God uses him to be a part of his bigger story. Do you know that you were made to be part of a bigger story? Do you know that even the mess in your life, God wants to use as part of the bigger story he wants to write in you? But here's the question. Will you say yes? Will you say yes? So today I hope to help us all increase our faith in a. God, who invites us into a bigger story so that we will say yes, let me pray as we get

started. God, thank you for stories. Thank you for your story that's playing out in this world. It's a story of redemption. It's a story of light overcoming darkness. And I thank you that you invite us to be a part of your story. God, there may be people in here today that aren't sure that you even exist. There may be people listening at home right now that aren't necessarily tracking with everything that I might say today. There are probably people in here, though, who do, and there might be people even who do believe in you but are struggling right now in their faith. Wherever we are, God, I pray that you would meet us in the same way that you met Gideon. I pray that you would speak to us and you would call in us and out of us who it is that you created us to be. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen. So this new series is all about people who acted in faith. What is faith? Faith is simply saying yes to God, but I'm going to give you the biblical definition of faith, which comes from the book of Hebrews, the New Testament letter. And in Hebrews 11, 1, it defines faith this way. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. You want to break down faith to an equation, I would say faith is this. Faith is belief times action. So you can be doing things, but if you are doing things in your own power, not aware that you need a greater power, God's power, in your life, that's not faith. And by the same token, you can read the Bible backwards and forwards and be able to quote Scripture, but if you're not acting on what you read in there and what God is calling you to do, that's also not faith. Faith is belief times action. One writer put it this way, in Hebrew, there isn't even a noun form of the word faith because

faith is only expressed as a verb because faith never exists apart from action. And this is the part we can miss. It's never a straight line. Faith is never a straight line. It's always got its twists and its turns. A couple of years ago, Crossroads actually filmed a reality show. It was called Phantom Lake and the premise of the show was Brian was taking several rookie writers, me being one of those rookie writers, on a really challenging, some might even say treacherous course called the Colorado Backcountry Discovery Route off-road motorcycling and none of us had done anything like this before. And what that means is while most people have to, you know, kind of get to have their meltdowns in private, I got to have mine in public. And they were filmed from multiple angles and I was mic'd the whole time. So welcome to one of the toughest days of my life. I have a fear of heights. I have a fear of these kinds of things and for me, this trip will very much be about can I overcome that fear? Can I do more than what I think I can? Can I overcome things that I don't know that I can overcome? I want to role model that for my kids. I don't want my kids to have these fears and I want my kids to have a heart for adventure, to be open to new things. Yeah, buddy. More, more, more. And okay, so you let off here, right? Okay. So you want to keep in it. Okay. Get on it. Get on it.

I was nervous about my direction. Okay. You got to. Stay on it. Stay on it. Stay on it. Stay on it. There you go. Okay. Keep on it straight. Just bear with it. Bear with it. Just take it easy. There you go. Keep it in. Keep it in. Keep it in. Keep it in. Keep it in. Keep it in. Keep it in. Keep it in. Keep it in. Keep it in. Keep it in. Keep it in. Keep it in. Keep it in. Keep it in. Keep it in.

Keep it in. Keep it in. Brad's doing a really, really great job at being an encourager and trying to patch people up emotionally, and specifically Chuck emotionally, as he tries to sweep him up the top of this hill. I've got you. You're good. Keep it in. Keep it in. Keep it in. Keep it in. So we get the top of Corkscrew Pass and it is amazing. The view is amazing, the camaraderie is amazing. I felt like grabbing everybody by the helmet saying, see, I told you, I told you. The morale is sky high, the energy is sky high, the belief that yes, we can do this is sky high. No question, this is an emotional highlight for this trip. I'm just so thankful for the guys. They encouraged me, they put something in me that I didn't have. And I just wanted to get up one freaking mountain and I got up this mountain. I'm not even sure if I was going to work on this, but I wanted to show you the top of the mountain. It's the hardest thing I ever did. And I didn't think I'd be able to do it. It was so hard. And I needed everybody's help. There were times I wanted to quit, turn around, and when I got to the point where I was ready to give up, I've probably fallen off my bike 15 times today, getting up this hill. And when I thought about giving up, I thought about you, I thought about you, Nathan, I thought about you, Sam, and I thought about you, Isabel.

And I don't want you guys to ever be people who give up, because you can do amazing things with help, with people's help and with God's help. So I just want to record this for you, because I want you to know, I've made it to the top of this mountain. You motivated me to do it. I love you guys so much. I love you. I believe in you. I believe in everything that God's doing in your lives. And I just want you to know, you can climb mountains. Daddy climbed a mountain on his motorcycle. I'm not crying, you're crying. I still think about that a lot, because it was such a challenge. I don't know if the footage does it justice, but like, you know, off to the right there, that was death. That was death. So, certainly maiming, and maybe death. Like it was really challenging, and you're at altitude, so you're huffing and puffing and breathing. And you know, I think about that story, because there are two ways I could tell that story, right? One way I could tell that story is, hey, let me tell you about the time when I made it up one of the most challenging hills that you can ride on a motorcycle. But as you now know, there's way more to the story than that. There's a lot more twists and turns than that. There's a lot more fits and starts than that. There's frustration and pain and difficulty. And I want you to know today, I think that is more of what it looks like to live a life of faith than not. Big idea today is this, faith zigzags.

Faith zigzags. So if you're at a place in your life where your life is more zig and zag than it is up and to the right, you may not be doing anything wrong. You may be doing it right. And so we can learn from Gideon's zigzag story. So a little bit more on who Gideon was. He lived in Israel at a time when they were under oppression from a nation called Midian, the Midianites. And what that meant was economic oppression, because every time the Israelites would try to grow crops to feed themselves, the Midianites would come in and destroy their crops. So there was economic oppression in the time of Gideon. There was also some family pain that was specific to his family that he was also dealing with. And because of that, there was shame. There was shame. In fact, we find Gideon hiding. That's how he comes—that's how this hero enters the story. He's hiding in a wine press. He's trying to grow food in a way that wouldn't be revealed to the Midianites. Gideon is a nobody from nowhere. And I wonder if anybody felt like that or feels like that. I want you to know God uses nobodies from nowhere. In fact, he says himself he's from the weakest and the smallest tribe in Israel. And yet this nobody from nowhere who is hiding in a wine press is visited by an angel of the Lord that says this to Gideon in Judges 6.12. The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor. To which Gideon says, say what now? You see somebody else here? You talking to me? That's where he says, I'm from the smallest tribe. Gideon doesn't believe this, but this is the first zigzag of faith.

Faith begins with an encounter. Faith is not about courage that you muster up. It's about responding to a God who initiates with you. Like I said, Gideon was hiding. He wasn't sharpening his sword, hoping that God would pick me to be the rescuer. No, no, no. He was hiding. He wasn't praying. He wasn't fasting. He wasn't looking for God. But here's the good news. God was looking for Gideon. And wherever you are today, I want you to know God is looking for you. He's seeking you out. Do you know that you have a calling on your life? Do you know that you were created with a purpose in mind by the Creator Himself? And He wants to bring that out of you, even if you don't see it in yourself. Faith begins with an encounter. I have a couple friends of mine who I'm really excited for because they're early in their journey of fatherhood. One of my friends actually just announced that him and his wife are expecting. It's a honeymoon baby, so I'm excited about that for them. And then there's another friend of mine who's on paternity leave right now because he just had his first kid. And I love these guys, and I love when people step into parenthood. I really get excited about that, especially fatherhood, because that's my unique experience. But I love that because any parent in here knows this to be true. You weren't born a great parent. Nobody is born a great parent. You become a great parent, right?

But the potential is there from the beginning. I love it because this is how God looks at us. This is how God looks at Gideon. God says to Gideon, I see in you a mighty man of valor. And maybe someone today needs to believe that, that God sees in you a faithful person, that God sees in you an overcomer, that God sees in you someone who is not going to be limited by their past, but someone who can heal and grow from their past. God saw something in Gideon that Gideon didn't see in himself. Was God being unrealistic? Was God being too optimistic? No, I actually would suggest that God is being radically realistic because when it comes to your calling, it doesn't matter the measure of the man or the woman. What matters is the power of the God who calls you. God's word meant more than Gideon's word in that moment. And here's the good news. Faith means more than the words that may have been spoken over you by other people. Who said you won't measure up. There's no way you can be all that you want to be. There's no way that you can be used by God if those are words that others have said to you. Faith is choosing to believe what God says over you and not what others say over you. Ephesians 3.20 says this, it says, Whatever is the biggest, boldest prayer you could have for your life, God can do exceedingly far and abundantly more. So you got to ask yourself the question, what was Gideon's greatest enemy? Was his greatest enemy the Midianites, the enemy out there, or was Gideon's greatest enemy the same that is often our greatest enemy, which is the enemy in here? Our minds get us into trouble all the time when it comes to living out faithfully what God calls us to. Because we can fall into two ditches about ourselves.

One is we can think too highly of ourselves. We can think that we have what it takes. Bible calls that pride and it says pride always comes before a fall. But on the other side of the coin, we can think too lowly of our potential. And we can be stuck in shame or self-pity and forget that what ultimately matters is not what we say, but what God says about us. Faith begins with an encounter. Next though, faith isn't certainty. Faith isn't certainty. People say, was doubt the opposite of faith? I don't think so. I think that doubt is a part of faith. In fact, I would put it to you this way. If you are communicating your doubt to God, like we're about to see Gideon do in a moment here, if you're telling God, God, I'm not sure, God, I don't know, God, you got to help me with this. I would say communicating your doubt is in and of itself an act of faith. It is an act of faith. It only becomes not faith when you walk away from the conversation with God. And maybe some of us are here today and we've done that. We've walked away from the conversation with God. Well, I got good news for you. God is waiting with open arms for you to come back. He's waiting with open arms to engage you again in the conversation that you may have walked from. Gideon, man, this dude is doubtful. God calls him and he is doubtful. Have you heard the term looks maxing? It's like in kind of the social media realm right now, people trying to do sometimes unfortunate and painful things to themselves to be more beautiful, be more handsome.

Well, Gideon's not looks maxing, but he is definitely doubts maxing in this story. Let me tell you how Gideon responds. To a literal angel who comes to him. He says please my lord if the Lord is with us Why then has all this happened to us? And where are all the wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us saying did not the Lord bring us up out from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian Gideon's like hey, forgive me. I know you're an angel But I'm having a little difficulty trusting what you're saying when I look at the situation in my life And isn't that real? Anybody else struggle to trust God because life is hard Maybe because there's a string of disappointments on the thing that you really are sure God called you to The victory hasn't happened yet and Gideon is honest enough to say it I had to learn this in my own journey with God that I can be emotionally honest with God I don't know about you, but I grew up in my family of origin. There were certain emotions that were on the table Yes, you can express those and there were certain emotions that were off the table Or at least I never saw them expressed in a healthy way And so I took them off the table because I'm like this might be bad and for sure one of those was anger and absolutely I can't be angry at God. Oh my goodness. Won't God strike me with lightning if I express anger at him? But let me let me be honest. Is there any close relationship in your life where anger isn't a part of it? I mean you heard me crying on that video talking to Isabel and Sam and Nathan. Man, those suckers can make me angry I love my kids, but man, it can make me angry at times right because there's a love relationship there I had to learn this about God. God is the most psychologically safe being in the universe If there is anybody that you can express the fullness of your emotions to it is God. Think about it God already knows how you feel so you're not surprising him He also never takes it personally. Isn't that awesome? He loves you no matter what and He loves you enough to tell you the truth That's the most psychologically safe being you can ever be in relationship with and yet he is gentle and gracious And so even though Gideon expresses Uncertainty God doesn't strike him down. God allows for him to need reassurance. That's the third thing faith allows

Reassurance see maybe you've not heard or read the story of Gideon in the Bible But you may have heard this term that comes from Gideon's story ever heard somebody say I'm putting a fleece out To try to determine whether I should do this or not Well that comes from Gideon's story even though and I got to keep coming back to this y'all Even though he was visited by a literal angel in that crazy Can you think about like I would think if God actually showed up with a literal angel. I might have a little bit more faith I Don't know maybe not but like I would think like man I might be able to lean in a little bit But no, even though he sees a physical angel Gideon says, okay God you want me to do something for you? Well, I'm gonna test you. I need you to do something for me. This is how it shows up in judges 636 then Gideon said to God if you will save Israel by my hand as you have said Behold, I am laying a fleece of wool on the flesh threshing floor If there is dew on the fleece alone and it is dry all On all the ground then I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand as you have said And it was so when he arose the next morning. He squeezed the fleece He wrung out enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water God over delivered on his ask What is Gideon do he says great God I just need it one more time. I need you to do it one more time He says let not your anger burn against me. Let me speak just once more. Please Let me test just once more with the fleece please let it be dry on the fleece only and on all the ground let there be dew and God did so that night and it was dry on the fleece only and on all the ground there was dew guys I got to tell you this is not sounding like a mighty warrior This is not sounding like a guy who we should be looking at as an example of faith At some point you got to wonder if God is like man, oh my god, I might have the wrong guy here Man, I need to move on right? But here's the thing. We can judge Gideon for testing God, but don't we test God all the time? We do that Here here's how it might sound. All right God if the job offer comes by Friday, I'm gonna take it Right anybody done that. How about this one God if these test results come back clean. I am going back to church Some of y'all are here because you got clean test results praise God for that. I'm glad you're back. Welcome back

We're glad to have you back Okay, maybe that doesn't resonate with you. How about this one God if there's no line in Chick-fil-a It means I'm supposed to get the pimento pepper sandwich in the milkshake Somebody's clapping because you tested God that way this week. We test God all the time How about this one God if the parking space at the front of Target is open? You do want me to buy that $40 candle that I don't need some of y'all testing God right now You don't have to church that way. I get it. I get it. How about this one? Okay, God, if she likes my Snapchat within five minutes, we're basically engaged. I mean, we test God all the time. We test God all the time. And listen to this. I think it says something that God allows for us to need to be in conversation, in our faith journey. He's okay with the zigzags of our faith journey. I told you that Hebrews 11, 1 defines faith. Just a couple of verses later, it says this, and without faith, it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. See, I want you to hear this. It's okay to need reassurance as long as we are drawing near to God. God cares far more about the posture and the trajectory of your heart than he does about where you find yourself at this moment. In this moment, you might be fearful. In this moment, you might be frustrated. In this moment, you might be numb. In this moment, you might be angry. God is not judging you for where you are in this moment, but he's asking you to lean in, to let the trajectory of your heart be toward him and not away from him. And it's so important that we continue to draw near because, don't miss this, faith has a deadline on hesitation. There does come a point where God will say it's time to move. There does come a point where your reluctance and hesitation to trust God will lead to some things not happening in your life that could otherwise happen if you would trust God. Regardless of what you think about Michael Jackson,

he had some troubles in his life for sure, but he was a prolific singer and songwriter. And one thing he said one time is this, he said, I feel like I have to keep receiving these songs because if I don't, God might give them to Prince. He might've been right. He might've been right about that. Seriously. We see this in Gideon's story. At some point, Gideon just has to move. It's interesting how it plays out in his story. Gideon has to face an army of 135,000 Midianites. Now I have not been to war college. I don't have a military background. I am not an expert on war strategy, but simple math would say to me, it's probably better if I have more soldiers than the enemy does. Well, Gideon has to face this 135,000 soldiers with only 32,000. Sorry, but that math does not math. But our God is faithful and our God is more than enough. So how will God close that gap between 135,000 and 32,000? So how's God going to close that 103,000 gap? You know what he's going to do? He's going to drastically reduce Gideon's numbers even more. What? What? That's exactly what happens. First, this happens. In Judges 7-3, Gideon says at God's guidance, tell whoever is fearful and trembling, let them return home and hurry away from Mount Gilead. Now you might think in that case, 10% would go home which still leaves them with a pretty decent size force. No, 22,000 of the 32,000 said, peace out. See you later. I'm out. I'm out. And here's the thing about the people who ran home. They might've saved their hides that day, but you know what? They missed out on the victory. I wonder if there are things that could be yours that are not yours because you didn't trust God.

I wonder if there are opportunities that you could be leveraging right now, relationships you could be in right now, ways that healing and growth has happened in your life. You might be on the other side of some things that you're struggling with right now, but because you didn't trust God enough, you're still in that place. That's a sobering reality that I think about all the time. I have a friend and he's an author. He's written some books. He said there was a specific book that he felt and knew God called him to write. But out of fear, reluctance, whatever it was, he didn't write the book. He said, I'll never forget several years later, I'm on Amazon and I saw the book. Somebody else wrote his book. And God reminded him, I gave that to you. I just wondered today if there is something that God has placed in your hands. I wonder today if there's something that God wants you to step into. Gideon had to be fearful, no doubt, when God took even the 10,000 that remained down to 300 against 135,000. But Gideon teaches us a lesson about faith that you and I need to know, which is this, faith moves scared. Faith moves scared. Friends, sometimes you got to do it scared. Sometimes you got to do it with what you have. I love God's words to Gideon in Judges 6.14. He says, Gideon, go in the strength that you have. Yeah, I know you wish you had more resources before you started that business. And God is saying, go in the strength that you have. you have. Yeah, I wish you—you know you wish you had more time to kind of prepare for the journey of becoming a parent, but God says, go in the strength that you have. I know you're feeling like, I got to get my ducks in a row, I got to get my life together before I go all in for Jesus. But no, Jesus is saying, come to Him in the strength that you have. I don't know what it is in your life. I do know this, God is saying sometimes you have to do it scared. Sometimes you have to do it before your friends think it's a good idea. Sometimes you have to do it before your parents are on board. Sometimes you have

to forgive before you feel ready to forgive. Sometimes you need to ask forgiveness before you feel ready to ask for forgiveness. Sometimes you and I have to do it scared. But here's the good news, you may be called to do it scared, but you are never, ever, ever going to have to do it alone. Let me give you the promise that God gives to Gideon just two verses later after He says, go in the strength that you have. He says, I will be with you. Friends, can I be honest? That's all you need. That's all you need is to know that God is with you. Going back to the corkscrew video there, you heard Brian talk about Brad. Brad was the guy who was patching me up in the video. Brad was the guy that when I was too weak and winded to pick up my bike, he picked up my bike for me. Brad was the guy you saw with his arm around me encouraging me. Brad was the guy who was beside me coaching me when my fear caused me to forget how to use a clutch on a motorcycle. God, He brought Brad to be alongside me. And here's what I need you to know. I need you to know that God loves you so much. He believes in what He has put in you so much that He didn't just send you a human. He actually came Himself in the form of Jesus, the perfect human, and also God to live a life that you and I could never live, to die the death that you and I deserve, so that we could know that when life zigzags, we've got Jesus on our side. We've got Jesus wrapping His arm around us, saying it's gonna be okay. We've got Jesus coaching us when we forget how to pull the clutch on a motorcycle. We've got Jesus when we're fearful. We've got Jesus when we're angry. We've got Jesus when we're on the mountaintop. We've got Jesus when we're on the valley because God believes in you so much that He wanted to prepare you to do it scared. And here's the thing, when you step out on faith, and you actually do the thing that God has called you to do, faith glorifies God, not us. Can I just be honest with you? Gideon is not the hero of this story. God is the hero of this story. And guess what? God is the hero of your story. Some of you, the reason that God has you where He has you, and He's asking you to do the thing that freaks you out, is because you don't know the impact that's gonna have on the people around you. You don't know how other people are gonna say, hey, you know what? I'm interested in this God. If He was faithful to you in that sickness, maybe I can trust Him with stuff in my life. You don't know the legacy you might be setting up right now for kids that may not have even been born yet that you're going to have as you walk a faithful journey with God. You just never

know. But know this, you're part of a bigger story. God wants you to be a part of a bigger story. God rescued Israel from an army of 135,000, with 300 men armed with lanterns and trumpets. But it's so God would get the glory. In fact, when they celebrate it, they say it this way in Judges 7, 18, for the Lord and for Gideon. And I think the order matters. I think it's really important to know the glory goes to the Lord. But don't miss this. God rewards faithfulness. Gideon got rewards for his faith. Let's go back to Hebrews 11, 6 again. It says, "...without faith it is impossible to please Him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards." Everybody say rewards. Rewards. He rewards those who seek Him. I've learned that there are so many things when it comes to following God. We receive by grace, meaning we don't earn it, we don't work for it, it's not about our effort, it's what God gives us freely. Rescue from our sins, Jesus dying on that cross on our behalf, so that we don't have to face sin and hell in the grave. That's something we simply receive as a gift. The gift of the Holy Spirit, God's literal being living inside of us, animating our thoughts, animating our actions, animating our life and our love. That's a free gift that we receive. Amazing. Being a part of this family called the church, and I don't mean a physical building, I don't even mean just crossroads, I mean that wherever people around the globe name the name of Jesus, it isn't like I'm their brother. No, we really are brothers and sisters. That's a gift that we receive. And there are some things when it comes to following God. God, you will not receive if you don't act. There are some things you have to obtain as the Bible says. So there are some aspects of God, you will never know if you don't trust him. If you don't ever trust God to be your provider, you will not know that he's a provider. If you don't trust God to be a redeemer, you will not know that he can redeem. If you don't trust God to be a healer,

you will not know that he can actually heal. Only if you act. Remember, what is faith? Belief times action. Only when we move do we experience those things. And here's the good thing. God is still looking for people. He's still looking for people hiding in wine presses. He's still looking for people who are trapped in their addictions. He's still looking for people who are struggling with their fear. He's still looking for people who are stuck in their anger. He's still looking for people who are wrestling with their doubts. God is still looking for partners to be a part of the bigger story that he is writing. So I'm gonna leave you with two questions, and these are questions that you can apply as you think about Gideon's story, but you can also apply them every week of this series. I think this is the conversation I want you to be having with God every week in this series. Question number one, am I findable? Am I findable by God? Yes, Gideon was hiding, but once the angel of the Lord came to him, he started engaging. Yes, in clumsy ways. Yes, in needing the fleece thing twice.

Yes, in his fearful hesitancy, but he was engaging with God. You got to ask yourself, am I findable by God or am I running from God? It's a question just bring to yourself, wrestle with in your own. And here's the second question. Will I say yes to the next step? I just talked to a guy after the service before this, who's struggling with community and really wrestling with some pain in his life. And as we talked and I prayed with him, we identified a next step. And I just said, hey man, you don't need to know the rest of it. You just need to know that. I wish I could tell you that if you follow Jesus, He's going to unload to you the beginning and the end of your life. You will know steps one through 25. Anybody who's been following Jesus for five minutes knows that's not true. But if you trust Him with the next step, He'll reveal the step after that, and the step after that, and the step after that, and the step after that. And over time, you'll look at your life and realize, oh my gosh, look at this zigzag journey that has absolutely been taking me to the place

that God always intended to take me. Will you say yes to the next step? Faith equals belief times action. And when you say yes to God, you get to be a part of the bigger stories right in your life. Let me pray for us. God, I pray that you would help us in this series to lean in. I think that one of these stories, maybe it's getting for some, it might be Joseph for others, might be some of the others that we're doing later in the series for others. There's going to be a story that's like, oh, that's for me. And so I just pray that we would be open to what it is you want to say to us, that we would hear your voice, we'd be findable by you, and we would take the next step. And I pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Good people, thanks for joining us today and spending time with us in a word. My encouragement is simple. Don't just hear God's word today. Take one step because of it. Maybe that's opening your Bible. Maybe it's spending a few quiet minutes in prayer. Maybe it's forgiving someone, asking forgiveness,

simply saying yes to whatever God is putting in front of you today. Whatever that next step is, take it. And if this message encouraged you, we'd love to hear from you. Send us a videogram or write to us at prison at crossroads.net. Our team reads every letter. We'd love to walk alongside you. Till next time, keep pursuing Jesus. Keep opening his word. Keep saying yes one day at a time. See you soon.