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So Big
January 27, 2008 Rev. William “Buck” Day
We are glad you are here. We are going to move into our scripture reading for the day. It comes from the book of Judges, from the sixth chapter, so I invite you to follow along as I read God’s word this morning. Judges 6: 11-16.
Then the angel of the Lord came and sat beneath the great tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abiezer. Gideon son of Joash had been threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “Mighty hero, the Lord is with you!” “Sir,” Gideon replied, “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn’t they say, ‘The Lord brought us up out of Egypt’? But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites.” Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!” “But Lord,” Gideon replied, “how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family!” The Lord said to him, “I will be with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.”
This is God’s word for us today.
Let’s pray:
Lord, we do give you thanks. We give you thanks for your word for it speaks to us, it teaches us, it directs us in the paths that we should go. We are grateful for it. Lord we ask this day that your Spirit would quicken our spirits so that you would be able to speak to us from your word. Lord we ask that in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Well there is a game that little children love to play. It’s kind of one of those games right after they learn how to play Peek-a-boo. It kind of goes like this: You say to the child, “How big is (and then insert the child’s name)?” “How big is Bobby?” And what’s the response? “So big.” “How big is Lisa?” “So big.” They love to play that game, don’t they? As they learn that and they learn the process, you notice how the responses become more animated. It is like, “How big is Bobby?” “Soooo big.” “Soooo big.” It’s a child’s game. As he’s learning it, he is learning about his growing independence and that he is a person who is on his own and can think for himself, beginning to understand that they matter, that they are their own person. In that “Soooo big” you notice that there is no sentiment of weakness and there is no statement of insignificance in that “Soooo big.”
Those words, “So big,” have been wrestling in my mind, kind of settling over me, lately. I think I have been thinking about them in relation to our faith and also to where we are right now in our life of Faith. It has made me begin to wonder, how big is Jesus in our lives? How big is Jesus? What I mean by that is how big do we see our God? Do we see our God as “Soooo big” or do we see our God as “So big?” I think one of the ways that we can answer that is to look at how we live, to look at how we walk through our lives, because I think the way that we live is a reflection of how big we see our God. Do we see our God that is “Soooo big?” Or do we really see kind of a small God, really? I mean, if we view God as kind of this small God, I think we live in fear and anxiety because we believe that we have to do everything on our own because God can’t give us the strength we need to get it done. He can’t intervene. When our view of God is small I think we don’t pray, because we don’t believe God can do anything anyway. When we have to confront someone, when we have small view of God, we maybe pull those punches because we are slave to what they might think. When we are tempted, we do it. When we want to act deceitful, we step into that because we believe that God doesn’t see in secret and doesn’t reward what He sees. But if our God is “Soooo big,” then there is security. There is security in that giant God who loves you. What kind of difference would that make in your lives and what others think of you? Our big God wants us to know that we are completely safe in His all knowing, His all present, utterly loving hands.
So the small god causes us to worship without awe, to serve without joy, to suffer without hope and to pray without faith; and the result is fear, stagnation, loss of vision and the inability to persevere. So with that, let’s take a look at our scripture and learn that we don’t have to live with a small tribal god. Now our scripture is at a time in the life of the nation of Israel when it was before the Israelites had kings and it was after Joshua had died. They were still fighting the people that were still living in the Promised Land, those people like the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Midianites, just to name a couple of them. After Joshua had passed from the scene, the Israelites began to forget about their God who had led them up to that point. They began to worship the local gods of the people who inhabited the land, those small tribal gods. Lots of times they went by the name of Baal or Asherah and these local tribal gods were predominantly fertility gods. What that means is that you would go to worship to ask for a better crop for your land so you would have food to eat, or fertility for your family, if you needed a large family. So when you would go to worship you would go to one of these local temples and you would worship these local gods. Lots of times that meant going and visiting the temple prostitutes because that was an act of worship for fertility. On top of that, many times they would sacrifice infants as part of this fertility right; needless to say that didn’t fit very well with God. God was not pleased with that, that His chosen people would choose to worship something other than Himself and the living God.
So Judges tells us that God had made these nations a thorn in the side of the Israelites because of their disobedience. Every so often God would raise up a Judge to bring them back to God. After they moved beyond the scene, the Israelites would revert back to the way they were, worshipping these small tribal gods. One of those nations was the nation of the Midianites. Our scripture tells us that for seven years the Midianites overran and made sport of the Israelites. So by the time we get to chapter six, the Israelites are hiding in caves in the mountains. Every time that Israel would come out and try to grow some crops or maybe let their livestock graze, it says that the Midianites would sweep down upon them as a swarm of locusts attacks a field and would wipe them out and would take everything. Needless to say the Israelites were hurting ball players. So they cried out to God and God raised up a judge for them and that’s kind of where we picked up our scripture that we just read.
The angel of the Lord comes to Gideon at Ophrah. How many of you thought that was a typo? (There is no Oprah in the bible, just an FYI.) Ophrah. Ophrah. Gideon is threshing wheat in a wine press, it says. Now that is a minor detail but it is important to take a look at minor details when you read scripture because they help us understand the context of what is going on. Tell me where did people typically thresh wheat? Kind of out in the open, didn’t they? I mean you get some horses or cattle and you get them walking in a circle to try to kick up the chaff so the wind would blow it away. A wine press in those days was much like this, basically a hole in the ground, carved out of the rocks. That’s what a wine press was. Now think about that. Was that the best place to be removing the chaff from the wheat? Probably not, is it? Why? Why would Gideon be doing that? He was afraid. He was afraid. And I began to think about trying to help us understand the make-up of Gideon and kind of where he was coming from, this guy who God was calling. I was thinking, “Wow! What’s a good way to begin to think about it, to try to get our heads around it?” and I came up with this. This is kind of an understanding of how Gideon’s mindset was. (A picture of Barnie Fife shows on the screen.) Who is that? It’s Barnie Fife from Mayberry. Barnie Fife was one of the great scaredy-cats in all of T.V. history. When we think about Barnie Fife and how he would be shaking in his boots at any kind of trouble that might come around, it begins to give us an idea of where Gideon was coming from. Here’s a man with no dreams, no possibilities, he is threshing wheat in a wine press and he is thinking to himself, “I am from the weakest tribe and I am the weakest member in my family. I can’t see beyond my fear to the what ifs.” He had no vision. In the midst of that, look at how the angel addressed him, “The Lord be with you, Mighty warrior.” Can’t you imagine Gideon just kind of going, “Who are you talking to?” Gideon’s looking around I’m sure trying to figure out who the angel is talking to; and, when he realizes it is him, what he seeks to do is he seeks to sidestep that statement with the response, “If the Lord is with us….” You notice how the Lord addresses him as “You” but what does Gideon do, he says, “us”. See what he is doing is he is trying to get out of involvement here. He is trying to bypass this call and for whatever reason maybe he just doesn’t want to get involved, maybe he has just had enough with the Midianites over the years, maybe it’s just plain self-centeredness; whatever it is, it is easier to live in fear. It is easier to live with no vision, no thoughts of what can be beyond.
Of course, Gideon is the only one who falls into that trap, right? Gideon is back peddling any way he can to get out of God’s call. He has seen what the Midianites can do over the years. The key passage here to remember, I think, is to see how the angel responds to Gideon. The angel doesn’t respond with the rationalization on why he should be involved. He just goes right passed that and he stays on task and he says to Gideon, “Go out in your might. Go out in your might.” I’m sure Gideon is thinking this angel of the Lord got the wrong name from heaven and he was just at the wrong house. But he has been set apart. The angel then commissions him saying, “I am sending you,” just as we did last week. He is saying, “I am sending you. You have been set apart for God’s work. You will free the Israelites from the Midianites.” Then the word comes. The word comes that it kind of runs over Gideon at first, but it is words that he will come to know. They are words that he will come to trust and I think that they are words that he will come to love. It is, “I will be with you.” “I will be with you.”
As the story continues Gideon continues to kind of tiptoe into his call. First off after this little exchange he asks God to prove that he actually is there talking to him. Then he talks about tearing down the temple of Baal that his father had constructed; but he does it at night because he doesn’t want to raise to big of a ruckus. Then we know the story of laying out the fleece before the Lord. In all of those stories with Gideon, God walks with great grace alongside this man. He walks with great grace and He proves that these words are true. “I will be with you. I will be with you.”
I have to tell you that this story is very comforting to me. It is also I think very exciting for us when you begin to lay it over where we are here at Faith right now, because the Lord is calling us to a new place. That place, I think, will come with many uncertainties, and those uncertainties for us are as the Midianites were to Gideon. Some of those uncertainties, as well; how are we going to manage without Chris being here? Will we be able to get by on our finances? Where are we going as a Church? You know the controversies that are a part of our denomination and part of our congregation as well, what is going to happen to those? Are they going to tear us apart? Those are all uncertainties that are before us. It is a lot of what ifs, isn’t it? A lot of what ifs. It is a lot of things that could bring fear or worry.
I heard recently that scientists have discovered that there is actually a worry gene. Did you know that? They have identified a worry gene. And if you have the worry gene it is usually a little bit shorter that those who don’t have the worry gene. So how many of you right now are worried that you have the worry gene. In the midst of our uncertainties I believe that God wants us to move forward towards a new future. I think he is calling us as well. Your Session has begun to think about that, to pray about that and begin to talk about that. I think the same question that is before us is the same question that was before Gideon. How big is your God? How big is your God? Is your God a threshing wheat in a wine press kind of God or is your God a – I’m going as your warrior Lord. Lead me into the unknown and I will follow you – kind of God? God doesn’t want us to get stuck in neutral in this time period. Chris, I know, affirms that. He told me that. And as we have begun this process of trying to look toward the future, trying to find out what direction God wants us to go, we look at that and we say that is a big undertaking to identify who God wants us to be as Faith Church going forward. But I believe in that we must remember the words that were given to Gideon, “I will be with you. I will be with you.” God is the one who will give us that direction. God is the one who will be with us and we will not be left to our own thoughts, our own desires, our own ideas. He will be with us through those good times as well as the hard times. I believe that not only as a church can we get through but I believe we can thrive. We can thrive, not in our own strength, Lord knows I don’t have it; but we can get through in God’s strength. For what is unthinkable with us is unstoppable with God.
As we move forward, as we begin to think, and to pray and to dream about what God wants us to become, we will then begin to say, “O.K., let’s not just make that a nice strategy that we hang on the wall.” As we begin to think about that, it’s not just another plan we are going to put on the wall. I have heard that from some people. “Well we’ve done this, we’ve done this before and we just put it on the wall.” We don’t want to do that this time. We want to take that and then begin to lay out strategies for what that might look like and what that might mean and include for us and then say, what does that mean? Let’s begin to take some steps to make that into reality, to begin to implement that. That’s what we want to move forward with. Wherever it is that God leads us, that’s what we need to do. We need to be faithful to allow God to lead us and then step in that direction. As part of that process we will all have input into it. It is not going to be done behind closed doors and then kind of, “Tada”; but it is going to be something that we all are going to have a chance to dialog and to think and to pray over.
I hope that excites you. I hope that excites you as much as it does me because I think this is really a good thing. I ask you to pray as we continue to move forward toward where God is taking us. But the starting question is the most critical, “How big is your God?”
“How big is your God?” “Soooo Big!” “How big is our God?” “Soooo Big!” “How big is our God?” “Soooo Big!”
Let’s Pray.
Lord, Thank you that you are so big. You are bigger than our wildest dreams and we desire to be faithful to you. Lord we ask that you would lead us and Lord we don’t know where that is. We have some inkling but we lay them before you and ask you to continue to lead on. Lord you are good. Help us to live with that thought, that you will be with us, you will never leave us nor forsake us. Those are the words you left us Jesus when you ascended back into heaven and we believe them, and we will live by them for your glory and for your honor forever and ever. Amen.
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