Greetings mighty warrior! Don't go looking around you to try to figure out who I am talking to, I'm talking to you. Like Gideon, you are one of God's mighty warriors. Do you feel like a might warrior? Do you look like a mighty warrior? Do you act like a mighty warrior? I for one can answer a unanimous no to each of the above questions. Yet despite this God calls me his mighty warrior. What is the true sign of a mighty warrior?
In our reading today God was calling Gideon, the mighty warrior, to go into two battles. I know, I know, you're thinking, "Ruth, there was only one battle in today's story." It may look that way but as I see it there were two. There was the obvious one against the foreign enemy, the Midianites, in which God would show is power through only 300 mighty warriors of Israel. But before that there was another battle that Gideon was called into that was a lot more frightening, a lot more dangerous, and potentially a lot more costly to him then the later. He was to go up against the people of his village, his family, his father and confront their sins. He was to take a bull that belonged to his father and use it as a sacrifice to God. He was to tear down his father's altar, build a new proper one in its place, and use part of the old one to burn this sacrifice to God. This battle was hitting close to home. So close that Gideon had great fear, not something you thinking a mighty warrior would posses, but in spite of that fear Gideon had something greater, obedience. Obedience is the true sign of a mighty warrior. Gideon's fear dictated when he would engage in that battle: in the evening, under the cover of darkness. But just as the light exposes sin it also exposes truth. Gideon's acts of obedience could not go undetected for long. He suffered persecution: death threats, shunned by his own people, called names. But in the midst of this his father came to a bit of reasoning even if it wasn't full acceptance of what his son did, of the message that was being sent from God. His father reasoned that if what Gideon did was wrong, was sinful, then those sins would have a consequence and he would suffer them. If what Gideon did was truly obedience to the God of Israel then maybe they should take another look at that nighttime attack on their altar to a pagan God. God was stirring in Gideon's father's heart.
So how does this translate into our lives? Good question, I'm glad you asked. Everyday we are up against a foreign enemy called sin. It wages war against us. It tries to settle in the fields of our hearts, tearing down and destroying that which we have tried to sow into good soil and grow to keep us strong and nourished. But sometimes it is not a foreign enemy in our hearts that we are battling. Sometimes God shows us that we are living in neighborhoods and families who are knee deep in sin and we are living without care or thought for their eternal consequences. Some of these people even consider themselves mighty warriors of God yet they have pagan altars in their lives that they are holding onto. Like Gideon, God does not want us to sit quietly by and accept sin, tolerate sin around us. He wants us to be obedient in revealing those eternal death traps that are preventing the ones we love, the ones closest to us from being free.
Now, we are not to go into the next family dinner or neighborhood block party with chainsaws on and sledgehammers raised determined to break their altars down. Gideon was called to break down his fathers' altar, his family's altar, the altar he had been willing to accept even if he didn't use it. He wasn't called to break down his family or his father. When you are gathered with those close to you and they start gossiping, using crude humor, sharing racial jokes, bashing the lost for sins they don't realize they are trapped by, etc… what do you do??? Do you sit by and let their lips burn pagan sacrifice of sin? Do you sit there and say to yourself, "I don't want to offended my family or friends so I will sit quietly by and offended my God instead?" That is what Gideon was guilty of. Sometimes the biggest way for us to have an impact is to let God speak reason into their hearts through our actions of obedience to God. Refuse to be in the room when people are partaking in sin, offering crude humor on the altar of their mouths, being judgmental of those who don't even know the eternal Judge of the universe. Eventually they will take notice (and possibly offense) and will ask why you leave. You can gently and with love express to them why you cannot be a part of that. Then you let God work in their hearts. Pray for them.
I will tell you though that you better make sure that you don't have an Asherah pole sticking out of your eye when you decide to start standing in obedience and wanting to help remove the specks of dust in other peoples eyes.
"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Matthew 7:3-5
We have all heard the saying, "Actions speak louder the words." That is how we begin, as mighty warriors, to help others, to help those closes to us tear down the pagan altars of their hearts. Make sure your are living as a mighty warrior in obedience to God and have removed what needs to be removed in your lives. Then God will show you how to help those who are closest to you. Oh I'm sure there will be times when you will face persecution, be shunned, and called names (you holy roller you!) But you must remember the name that is most important and that is Mighty Warrior.
It's not how you see yourself or what you think you are capable of but how God sees you and what he is capable of doing when, in spite of our fears, we are willing to be obedient, to be his mighty warrior!!!
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