God Uses the Least Likely | Marcus Mecum | 7 Hills Church

If you've got your Bibles, Judges chapter six, and we're going to look at verse 11, a familiar text. I like Gideon, I can relate to Gideon. I see myself in Gideon quite a bit. He's the underdog, he's the least likely, but yet God seems to see something in him. So the angel of the Lord came down sat underneath the oak that belonged to Joash, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a wine press to keep it from the Midianites. Of course, you don't thresh wheat in a wine press, you thresh wheat on a threshing floor, you press wine in a wine press. But it says why he's doing that, it's to keep it from the Midianites. The Midianites, of course, were an enemy and they would show up and devour the harvest. And so this was his strategy. And it says that the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon and said, the Lord is with you, mighty warrior. Gideon says, pardon me, but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Anybody ever felt that way before? I mean, I appreciate the cute Bible verses, but if God is with us, then why is all this happening to us? And then he brings up, where are all the wonders of our ancestors, all the things they talked to us about, about how God brought us out of Egypt,

the manna, you name it, the Red Sea partying, all the miracles, where are all those miracles? Have you ever thought that? Where are all the revivals we read about? Where's what we read about in the book of Acts, all the great miracles, all that mighty rushing wind that filled the upper room, where's all that at? And he says, not just has a lot happened to us, he kind of takes it to an extreme here, but I get it. And the Lord, or but now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of the Midian or our enemy. The Lord turned to him and said, go in the strength that you have and save Israel. Am I not sending you? Did you catch that? He's like, God's abandoned us? He's left us, he's turned us over to our enemy, and the angel doesn't even respond to any of that. The angel ignores every one of his complaints and just says, yeah, yeah, yeah, go save Israel. Doesn't it feel sometimes like God's not listening to your complaints? Do you ever feel that way? Do you ever feel like God, I mean, we know he cares, but maybe not care for us in the way we wished he would care like, would you make the problem go away? Would you fix the problem? Would you change the season? Would you steal the storm?

I mean, we get that he cares, but sometimes it's like the way he's caring, we would prefer it to be a little bit more comforting. The other day I went to a sandwich shop and I ordered a ham and cheese sandwich. And I came home and Sarah said, wow, you really do need comfort food. You know what I'm talking about? You want some comfort. Anybody know that every now and then you're just like, I just need some comfort. Well, I'm gonna just talk to myself. I don't really give that you don't wanna. Notice this, but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh and I'm the least in my clan or family. And God says, well, I'm gonna be with you. That's how this is all gonna go down. That's how you're gonna do it. So imagine, what it must have been like to be Gideon. He's looking at his life and everything he sees, everything he's looking at is the opposite of what God's talking to him about. So God's saying one thing, but life is saying another. Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt like, I like the sermon, I appreciate the Bible verses, they do sound good. Greater is he that's in me than he that's in the world, but the second you walk out those doors,

the world sometimes feels like it's kind of having its way with you. And that's how Gideon feels. He's hearing what the angel is saying, but he's looking at Israel that was once powerful, now is defeated, it's living in caves, it's begging for its next meal. That's what Gideon is actually doing. He's doing everything he can hiding out just to make sure they have lunch the next day. But yet the angel is talking to him about all these great things that God wants to do in his life. And Gideon is a broken man, Gideon has a broken spirit. It's not like there's an occasional attack happening. The Midianites had moved in, they're living now in that area, they're surrounding them. So this is not a quick fight, a quick skirmish, and then the enemy's gone. The enemy has moved in and is planning on staying a while. And as far as Gideon can see, there is no end to the pain and the suffering. And I think this happens to most people, if not all of us at some point. Where you feel surrounded, you feel overwhelmed by maybe the pressure or the fear of life. You start wondering, can I make this? Can I really do what I need to do? Maybe you isolate or you hide.

And then in the middle of that, God has a way of showing up and trying to encourage you of the great things that are in your future. If you can relate to that, if you can look at Gideon and you can say, that makes sense to me, when he looks at his life, there's nothing about his life that really says, his marriage is gonna be great, his future's going to be great, his career's gonna be great. Nothing about what he's looking at says that. If you can relate to that, well, there's four things that we see happen in this story that have to happen in Gideon's mind before it happens in his life. The first one is he had to stop believing some things. The Bible says when the angel started to talk to him about his future, Gideon's response was, God has abandoned us. And as long as he believed that, the potential to take his life back into his hands wasn't possible. As long as he believed that because of what he was looking at, that meant God was not with him, then the power of his future was in somebody else's hands. I've lived a lot of life, not as much as some of you, but I've lived enough life to know, one of the hardest things to do is convince somebody, your future is not in someone else's hands unless you put it there.

No, they're all in control of my future. So you don't have control of any of it. You have no control over that attitude, how you treat people, the effort you put into it, the care you put into it. Don't put the power for your future in someone else's hands because more than likely they're not going to care for it. So stop believing in some things. Stop believing that your past is the determining factor of your future. And I'll tell you why we believe in the past so much. It's because it was real. It actually existed. We were there. We touched it. We felt it. We witnessed it. We could put dates on it. We had conversations. We could give you the month, the day, the year. We could talk about the season, whether it was cold or whether the sun was out. We could tell you about the smells. We could tell you about, we could tell you about maybe even a song that captured that moment. It happened, so it's easy to believe in. And it's normal, like Gideon, to look back at your past, a place that you felt like God didn't come through, a place that you felt like God maybe abandoned you

or he didn't intervene the way that he should. It's legitimate to believe in that so strongly. And history does have its place. I'm not asking you to ignore it. It's legitimate. It happened, gather the data from it, consider it, but never give your past complete power over your future. Gideon was outnumbered, outmaneuvered, outmanned, but yet that's his past. God's talking to him about his future, but he could not get to Judges chapter seven, this place that God was wanting to take him until he was willing to overcome the things that he was believing in Judges chapter six. So you can't have victory until you quit pouting over how it's been. You can't see what God wants to do as long as you're still hanging on to how it's been. So stop believing in some things. And for this point, stop attaching the past to your future. They are separated. I know this is so practical, it pains me to mention it, but they're different categories for a reason. They have different titles for a reason. Your past, that's already happened, and then you have your future, that's not happened yet. You don't put them in the same category. You don't merge them. You draw the line, that was then, and my future hasn't happened yet.

And they are different for a reason. And part of understanding greatness is saying, okay, that's happened, that's gone on, but that is not the only predictor. I've got more going on. And in this case, what does God say about my future? What is God wanting to do in my future? What's God's word on it? What's God's mind on it? I've got to get his thoughts on it too. Well, number two, you've got to start believing in some things. So number one, stop believing in some things. Number two, start believing in some things. And the angel says three words, go save Israel. The angel's answer to Gideon of God's abandoned me, the enemy's overwhelming us, we're living in caves, we're defeated, God's left us, I'm the least of my family's house. The angel's answer to all of that was go save Israel. In other words, God, if you wanna know how he helps you get over the things that you have experienced in your past is he gives you an outrageous future. Now, it's not like you walk right into it, but he'll give you a glimpse of something greater. Imagine you're here this morning and you barely got out of bed to get to church, or maybe you didn't even get out of bed. to get to church, you're watching online. Maybe you're looking at your life and you're like,

Gideon, I don't even know how I'm gonna get to Friday this week. The thought of waking up on Monday morning right now makes me wanna, you know, I don't even really have anything to say that wouldn't be terrible, so I'm just gonna just leave a blank. You fill in the blank. And then God says, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, all that, but you go save America. Well, you talk about go save America. I'm not even really sure I wanna wake up tomorrow and go to work or go to school. I'm not even sure I know how to, if I've got what it takes to get to Friday. I'm not even sure I got what it takes to wanna preach another sermon. Go save Israel? Can you not relate to Gideon? Everything God is saying is so outlandish and what he's looking at, they're not, he can't connect the two. So God's saying, you're going to have to start believing in a new future, in a new direction. What did Paul say? This one thing I do, I forget about the past, but he doesn't stop there. The verse goes on to say, to press forward toward the high mark, that high call in Christ Jesus, isn't that good?

So you have to stop believing in some things, but you have to start, you have to have a high mark, a high call, you have to have a goal, something to aim for, a dream, a vision, something new that you're looking forward to, you have to start believing some things, some things that can be all consuming, something fresh, something new, something significant. You've got to stop believing in some things, but you've got to start believing in some things. The Bible says that the prophet Isaiah said, behold, I do a new thing, a new thing. There's gotta be new seasons, new relationships, new opportunities, new dreams, new marks, higher marks, greater marks that you're reaching forward. And that's what we're gonna talk about today. Number three, do less of some people. Gideon believed he was weak because his family raised him to believe that. So his first stop was his family. If he would have told his family the dream that the angel talked to him about, his family would have been clearly the ones to discourage him. There's no way, that's impossible. So Gideon had to learn how to do less of some people. The Midianites, which means strife or discord, was ultimately who God was telling Gideon he was going to have to get freedom from. So not only was it his family,

but there were other influences that were bringing strife and discord into his life that he was going to have to get freedom from. Paul said it like this, withdraw from disorderly brethren. I love that verse, but I like it in context. The word withdraw in the ancient text meant to pull tight the sail, like a sailboat, or to tighten the shoestring. So to withdraw from disorderly brethren just means you gotta tighten things up. Your circle's going to have to be a bit tighter. So those people that are loose with their life, loose with what they say, they're just loose with their opinion. You'd have to tighten things up because at some point, the wind's going to blow and you have to ask yourself, do I have things tight enough to catch the wind that God's sending? At some point, God's gonna say, this is the race I want you to run, but you're gonna have to have your shoestrings tight to run that race. So to withdraw just simply means, you know what, I'm gonna have to tighten some things up. It's not that I'm against everybody. It's that not everybody can run the race. I'm called the race, run, and not everybody can go where God is wanting to take them.

So do less of some people. Gideon starts out with 32,000 men. God's first instruction was all that are fearful need to go home. So 22,000 people immediately check out and walk away. So he goes from 32,000 to 10,000. All because God said you cannot go forward with fearful people. You're gonna have to do less of some of that. Fear, fear, fear, fear, just constant, just worst case scenario. This is how bad it's gonna be. You know, like I was on X this week and somebody said, this is gonna happen by Monday night. If you don't, it's like, and then I read the comments. They said, you said this 18,000 other times. By this date, the world's gonna follow. But the second you read it, you're like, oh my God, Monday night. What's gonna happen by Monday night? Well, I guess if he keeps saying it, at some point he might be right about it. Anybody know what I'm saying? There's no way to live. It's no way to live. So God said, let them go home. You can't go where you need to go living in all that fear. The next thing he did is the 10,000, he says 9,700 of them can go home because of how they drank water.

So he goes from 32,000 to 300. That's 31,700 no's. God says, nope, not them, nope, not them, nope, not them. 31,700 no's before he got to his yes. And it wasn't a big thing. It's how they drank water. So it's not always a big deal that makes you need to do less of some people. Just the little statements, just the little attitudes, just a little negativity. Just, it's not, it's just that thing when you get around them, you can feel them pulling you back. And it's, again, I'm not saying they're bad or they're evil and you need to tell them, he preached this sermon, you're the fearful one and you gotta go or you don't know how to drink water right, you gotta go. That's not the point. The point is you've gotta consider who you give influence to. I love a lot of people, but it's a handful of people that actually have influence with me. And it's not because I don't wanna give it to more people. It's just, I've learned you've gotta do less of some of that. In heaven, we can barbecue together. In heaven, we can walk the streets of gold together. In heaven, we can, I don't know, go hang out with Jesus and talk about the good old days together. But on earth, can I fight hell with you?

That's a different category. We're trying to take as many people to heaven as possible, but I've gotta make sure I know who am I going into battle with. And that is not going to be a crowded thing. Number four, do more of some people. These 300 men didn't care that they were the underdog. They didn't care that they were outnumbered. It's 300 against 135,000 Midianites. So this is 450 to one, that's the odds. So if you wanna know what kind of people to do more of, do some more of people that don't care what the odds look like. They don't care that the odds are stacked against you. They don't care what the stats say. They don't care what any of that says. They're willing to go into the battle with you. I love this part. I love this part. I love this part. Have you ever thought it's real tough sometimes to know what God's up to? What's God doing? Where's God taking me? How's God? Anybody know what I'm talking about? Sometimes it's really hard to know what God's up to. And I think that's a big part of it. It's hard to really, just a few of you are that way. Well, okay.

But I love what God told Gideon. He said, listen, I've tried to tell you all this. You're a mighty man of valor. Go save it, but for some reason you're still missing it. So he says, why don't you go over and listen to what the enemy is saying? And if it's unclear to you what God wants to do in your life, then every now and then you have to be reminded of what hell wants to do. Because for some reason that's real clear, right? It's pretty clear that if hell has its way and you look at your life five years from now and you keep doing everything that you've been doing, thinking everything you've been thinking, same behaviors, just go ahead and play that movie five years from now. It's pretty clear that hell will do everything it can to rob you of your peace, your joy, your relationship with, there is not a bottom deep enough that you can find that hell will not drive you into. There's not enough pain that you could ever possibly imagine hell has no limit concerning the future it would love to give you. Am I right about it? That's pretty clear. So God says, go listen to what the enemy is saying. Go listen to what hell says about you. You got to do more of some people. Do more of some people that don't care what the odds are. They don't care what the enemy thinks.

They don't care what hell thinks. They don't care what your past says. They're willing to say, let's look at what God might wanna do with you. It's at least worth considering, no? Michigan State was playing the Wisconsin Badgers and Michigan State was killing the Badgers. It was a game in 1982 and the game's almost over. There's no chance of a comeback. And the worst part about this game was the players and the coaches on the Badger sideline know that the game's, the clock just needs to run out but they're not going to win. So they're discouraged, frustrated. But what made that worse is their fans or the crowd behind them would spontaneously break out cheering. And they're like, they felt like they were being mocked. They felt like they were being made fun of. And so they started to get irritated and frustrated because they couldn't understand how is it that our own fans are celebrating when we're losing, we're being defeated? How is that possible? Well, what they didn't know was at the same time in a different arena, the Brewers, the Milwaukee Brewers were in the World Series playing the St. Louis Cardinals and they started to make a comeback in the fourth game. And as they start making a comeback,

there are people that are at the Michigan State Badgers game they're there at that game but they have their radios in their ears in. And so when the game in another arena starts changing an arena they can't see, but they can hear starts turning. They start celebrating what they're looking at is defeat but what they're listening to is victory. And I guess I just wanted to end with that today. I know what you're looking at isn't always something that says victory but you can tune in to another arena. You can hear what the spirit is saying. And no matter what it looks like, the spirit of God is faithful to show up and say, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. I see it too. I know, I know it looks terrible, but you're mighty. You've got some valor in you. Your best days are not behind you, there's still a future in front of you. There's still great things that I have planned for your life, but you've got to tune in to what the Spirit of God is saying. And the problem with the church most of the time is we walk by sight. How it looks, how it looks, how it feels, what we see, what's going on, you know, how I'm feeling about it. But God's not asking us that. He's asking us, can you not hear what I'm saying? Can you not hear what I want to do? Because things change when you begin to listen to what God has to say about your tomorrow, about your future, about your family, about your nation. What's God got to say about it?

Let's stand up on our feet. I love the fact that the Bible was clear that they had to light their torches. This was God's final instruction, light your torches. So whatever the future looks like, you're going to have to have some fire. And then it was break the bowls, play the trumpets, and make some noise. Isn't that good? God's final thing to 300 against 135,000, the odds are against you. But if you'll make some noise, it'll put fear in the heart of your enemy. And so part of our job is to learn no matter what the odds are that we're looking at, God has given you a voice. God's given you a tongue. God's given you the ability to start making some noise and say, I know it don't look good, but I can still lift my hands and say, hallelujah. It sounds foolish. It sounds like I'm crazy. I know the odds, but God is good. Even though life isn't, God's got my back. Even if people don't. Come on. Let's make some noise and let the enemy know. We know who has the final say. Come on. Can we lift our hands and begin to worship? Can we begin to make some noise? Come on. Lift your voice. Lift that song. Make some noise in his presence. God's turning around that battle. Father, I thank you for the word of the Lord in this room.

In Jesus name. We thank you that judges chapter seven, no matter what the odds are is in your word. And we know that we're not Gideon. We know that we're not. at 300, we know that. But we also know that you're not a respecter of persons. And we know that with you, all things are possible. And that's what you said to him. How is this even possible? And the angel said, because God is with you. Such a simple thing. God is with you. God is with us. The creator of the universe has somehow saw fit to be with us in Jesus name. Thank you for that reminder that you are with us. Give somebody today new vision, that new mark, that new dream, that new sense that the past isn't it's going to have the final say in Jesus mighty name, go save Israel in Jesus name. Whatever God's going to do, it's going to include you going, it's going to include you doing something for his glory and his honor. And no matter what the enemy has meant for evil. We thank you. The promise of your word is God meant it for our good in Jesus name. Anybody thankful that he's still the God of the underdog. I'm thankful for that. I really