God is Faithful, People are Failures
God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy.
That’s the song I listened to this weekend, I’ve been singing that country song since I was a little kid- so whenever I’m feeling disappointed, hurt, or homesick I listen to something like that to remember home. But as I sang along and baked muffins, I realized I’d probably change those lyrics to: God is faithful, butter is good, and people are failures. That’s what I want you to come away knowing more deeply today: in reverse order though- people are failures, but God is faithful.
While we are talking about reversing something, can someone shout out our theme for the year? Captivated- particularly being captivated by God’s love. But! Maybe you aren’t even feeling interested in God in the slightest? Maybe your heart is playing the uno reverse on Captivated. What if you seriously doubt Him and give Christians the bombastic side eye?
Then I’d ask you to listen to this story. It’s the story of a doubting, failing, insecure man who God used to rescue His people. His story of failure should point us to God’s greater story of faithfulness through a faithful, successful, confident man who God used to rescue all people who would believe.
Setting the scene. The book of Judges, 7:1 The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. 2 Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds.
6 Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help.
7 When the Israelites cried out to the Lord because of Midian, 8 he sent them a prophet, who said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 9 I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians. And I delivered you from the hand of all your oppressors; I drove them out before you and gave you their land. 10 I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me.” This is a cycle that God’s people the Israelites were stuck in. They would be rescued by God, put their faith in Him, doubt, fall into sin and failure by worshiping other gods, get conquered and pushed out of their “promised land” and then cry out to God who was there faithfully ready to save them. So we come to a man who is threshing wheat in a pantry instead of out in the open, because he is a coward and doesn’t want the other people who swoop in and take his food. Then boom. God shows up- in the mundane. And listen to how familiar this conversation is: “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”13 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
This can be summarized by God is here with us, “Nuhuh”. Gideon here shows some understandable doubt. How can you say God exists when you’ve never seen His face? How can you believe in a God who allows bad things to happen? If He is there and if He does love His people, why does He hate me? When I read this intro to the story I see something that often I don’t have the perspecitve to see in my own life: God’s patience and His presence as He waits for His people to call out to Him. The people of God had failed, they ignored Him and sought other things to fulfill them. It was only when those things failed that they turned back to God and realized that He was still being faithful to them.
The Lord then tells Gideon “Go and save Israel.” How do you think Gideon the coward replies? “What, how? I’m the youngest kid in the weakest family.” We may expect God to say, “Don’t worry I’ll beef you up.” But God says instead, “I will be with you.” You have been told, God is real, and if you’re a believer you’ve been told ‘God is with you’. But why believe it? Gideon lacks faith, like a lot of us do. He says, if it’s really you “Give me a sign” (17). God gives him a sign because even in Gideon’s lack of faith and in his failure to understand, God is faithful.
Why believe in the God of the Bible? Because even when we are at our worst, He is best.
God starts redeeming Gideon as Gideon starts to trust Him. Gideon tears down the idols and altars of the other gods, as God commanded him to do, but he does it in secret (because he’s still a little bit of a coward). Getting rid of idol worship though finally opens the Israelite’s eyes to the faithfulness and power of the one true God. I challenge you today, if you are blind to the faithfulness and power of the one true God, then it may be because you are serving other gods.
Israel turns back to God, but they are still being forced out of their own land, and their enemies start toteam up against them. So God sends His spirit upon Gideon to rally His people and go to fight for their land and for their lives. But, Gideon, doubts God. Gideon is a coward and He fails to believe that God will do what He said He would do.
36 Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised—37 look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.” 38 And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water.
39 Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew.” 40 That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.
God can take your doubt. I started doubting God in the 4th grade, and I remember my sunday school teacher saying, “It’s okay to doubt God.” Why is it okay to doubt God? Because He is faithful no matter what. He can prove Himself every time if you give Him the opportunity. We may fail to believe, fail to see His hand at work, but He will never fail to take care of His people. Sometimes, it is God’s people who make us doubt God.
Some of the worst doubts Andrew and I have wrestled with came from a time when our church was hurting us more than helping us. I worked for the youth group at our church, I loved my job. The longer I worked there though, the less “captivating” Christianity seemed to be.
Andrew and I were newly married, new to town, and both in grad school. We needed help, we asked for help, but we were met instead with expectations and empty words. My boss expected me to work 6 days a week, he expected me to do tasks that were not part of my job description, but were part of his, he expected me to laugh along and smile at his belittling comments about myself and Andrew. He expected me to be okay with the jokes he made about our coworker, he expected me to cover for him when he was late to our staff meetings and to be understanding when he forgot that we had a one-on-one. And to clarify from the beginning, I don’t think beer is good, but my boss would tell strangers at dinner parties we went to that I didn’t want to drink because I was pregnant- which was obviously a lie. When I told the other church leaders how hurtful the situation was they said, “Oh that’s really sad to hear, just keep serving God it will all work out.” Because of the way we were being treated by our church, I started to believe that that was how God wanted us to be treated. My boss didn’t care that I was burned out, or overwhelmed, and it made me feel like I didn’t matter, and that I just needed to suck it up and push through. Years later, during COVID, I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t keep working for him. I felt so invaluable, so unloved, and I had started to doubt that even God loved me. But I cried out to Him. “Jamie,” I told my best friend as we stretched after our run. “It’s me or him. So, I’m going to be quitting this week.” Jamie prayed with me, that things would change, that I wouldn’t have to walk away from the students that I loved, and that God would show Himself to me. Three days later on a zoom meeting my boss asked me to stay logged on after everyone else left, “Christine, I’ve been offered a new job. I’m moving!” He told me happily. I couldn’t believe it. Had God really answered my prayer? Had God really heard me? Did He really care?
The story of Gideon goes on in Judges 7-8. It tells of the Lord sending Gideon into battle with only 300 men so that the Israelites would not be able to say “My own strength has saved me”. Gideon was obviously terrified, so God sends him another sign that He is with him. Then, with nothing but a lantern and a trumpet in their hands the Israelites defeat their enemies and win back all their land without losing any of their soldiers. God was faithful to His people when they cried out. He saved them even through the coward Gideon. He makes Gideon a strong warrior, but as Gideon’s success grew, so did his pride. Instead of staying faithful to the Lord he falls back into the cycle of sin. He had led the people back to God, at the end of his life he leads them back into false worship. Honestly, reading the end of this story I get second hand embarrassment. The story of Gideon isn’t in the Bible because Gideon is great- in fact, we should read this story as a reminder that we are all failures- but this story shows more than anything that even when God’s people fail: He is still faithful.
If you don’t believe in the God of the Bible I just ask that you answer this question honestly with yourself: How great is the god I am serving? Just like Gideon’s father said after Gideon tore down the altars to Baal, can the things you serve stand up for themselves?
If you do believe, but you are struggling with doubt, I want you to know that God can handle it. Give Him the opportunity to prove Himself, because He is faithful.
If you believe, but don’t think you can be used by God- please know that in Hebrews 11, Gideon is listed as a mighty warrior of faith- despite the fact that he was the weakest, the least, and a doubter.
If you don’t know where you are with God because of the way Christians, or the church have hurt you or failed you- please know that Gideon wasn’t the hero of this story- God was. When we read Gideon’s story we are meant to see his failure, we are meant to see the need of a faithful, loving, savior. When we are surrounded by other sinners we are meant to see that we are in need of a savior. We are in need of Jesus, the one who came to earth, lived a perfect life, died a terrible death, was resurrected again, and offers us hope for eternity. Even if I failed in telling you why you should trust in God today, please know that God is faithful.
