When You Struggle with Doubt and Fear

Well, good morning. My name is René, I'm one of the pastors here, and I wanna welcome you to church this morning, whether you're joining us live here in the auditorium or over in venue, and since there's already some awkward scattered applause, let's just welcome everybody who's watching on venue with our applause. Now it's not awkward anymore.

Also, if you're joining on Facebook Live, we now broadcast all of our services, all three live on Facebook. We've had a ton of people join us on that too. Hey, I wanna start us off this morning with an inspiring true story about an incredible young man named Jake Olsen. This is Jake at four years old. You see an eye patch over one eye because when Jake was just four years old, he had to have one eye amputated because of cancer. And then when Jake was 12 years old, the cancer came back. And the doctors told him the other eye would have to go too. So at 12, he knew he would be blind for the rest of his life.

His parents asked him a few days before his operation, what is the last thing you wanna do? The last thing you want to see the night before the early morning operation to take out your last eye. And you know what he said? He said, I wanna go to a USC football game. University of Southern California. He was a huge fan. Now, I realize there are Stanford fans with us today. And there are UCLA fans with us today who are offended right now on religious grounds when they hear that, but work with me here, all right?

This is Jake. When the USC coaches heard about his wish, they let him walk onto the field with the team the night before his operation. They let him go on the field for the start of the game. And at the end of that night, 12 year old Jake looked at his mom and his dad and said, I am so glad that for the rest of my life, the last things I saw will be mom and dad and my little sister and Trojan football.

Well, after his second eye was removed, Jake began to become even more obsessed with football, obsessed with playing football, though blind. He practiced long snapping, that's hiking the football out to the kicker. And he got so good, he ended up playing in 20 games for his varsity high school football team. And that's when the head coach at USC heard about him. And remembered how Jake had visited the team years before when he'd been an assistant coach. And he told his coaching staff, I am about to do something that I am confident has never before been done in the history of college football. I'm going to go recruit a blind football player.

And he does. And Jake gets a scholarship to USC, which is not just any college football team this year, they're being picked by many to compete for the national championship. With some apprehension, Jake joins the team. Well, just this past weekend, one week ago, guess who comes into the game? Watch what happened next.

He is out there snapping. And a good snap from Jake. Listen to the crowd, look at the USC sideline. What a moment, look at the excitement right there from Jake Olsen. Isn't that awesome? It is awesome. Now you can applaud not awkwardly.

I saw that story last weekend and I thought to myself, you know what, that is a great parable for how God works in the lives of his people. He goes out and he recruits the most unlikely people who everyone else would think could never be in the game. And he recruits us to be his champions. Let's talk about it this morning. Grab your message notes that look like this. They're among the other pieces of paper tucked into your bulletins this morning. These will help you follow along. You can download them if you're watching online.

We're in a series we call Small Faith Big God. And this is important because in this series we've seen how the people of the Bible were actually not super mystics who lived on a different plane than the rest of us. They had questions, they had doubts, they had insecurities, they had weaknesses and failures. Somebody sent me this and it fits with the series so well. It says, "The next time you feel like God can't use you, just remember Noah got drunk, Abraham was too old, Jacob was a liar, Moses stuttered, Rahab was a prostitute, Elijah burned out, Jonah ran, Naomi was a widow, Job lost everything, Peter denied Christ, the Samaritan woman was divorced five times, Paul persecuted Christians and Lazarus was dead."

If the Bible proves anything, it is not a record of perfect champions of faith. It is a record of God moving through history, transforming and recruiting weak people, failures, doubt-ridden people, people just like you and me. And he transforms them into champions by his grace. Amen? And today is another great example. Let's talk about when you struggle with doubt and fear. If you need a faith boost this morning, if you feel like God's calling me to do something, but I'm full of questions and insecurities, or if you feel like I kind of like to be a Christ follower, but I don't know if I have enough faith, I don't always feel faith, you are going to love this story because this morning we're in a book of the Bible called Judges. We're in chapter six, we're going to look at Gideon's story.

Who is Gideon? Well, he's the guy who leaves all those Bibles in motel rooms. As you know, no. He's more than that. If you thought a blind football player was improbable, wait until you hear about Gideon. Now, let me start by giving you some context. Here's what the book of Judges in the Bible is all about. It takes place about 1200 B.C. So over 3000 years ago in Israel, and a series of judges leads the people. Now, these are not courtroom judges. Judge is a word that the Bible uses here to distinguish them from kings, which came later. These are just people that God raises up for a time because Israel is not yet a kingdom. They're leaders, they're heroes, champions.

And in the first five chapters of Judges, the first four Judges' stories are told, and they are uniformly brave and wise and skilled men and women like Caleb's younger brother, who was an amazing swordsman or a woman named Deborah. And by the way, I love the fact that at a time in history when women were treated as no better than furniture in a lot of cultures, there is a brave, heroic female leader in Israel, Deborah. So Deborah and the three men who served before her were all impressive. That's what I'm trying to get at. They were spies or swordsmen or prophets. And then comes Gideon. And going from those men and women to Gideon is kind of like going from James Bond to Barney Fife. It really is.

And if you don't believe me, just listen to this story. Here's the scene. As Judges chapter six unfolds, people called the Midianites are terrorizing the Israelites. They are like school lunch bullies times a thousand. They steal all the food. They burn. They kill. They bully. They maim. And that's where we pick up the story in Judges 6:2, because the power of Midian was so oppressive. The Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts and caves and strongholds. So imagine you were just nation building and now all that lies in ruins and you're hiding out in caves. This is pure humiliation. This is like a post-apocalyptic scene. Everybody's hopeless.

Whenever Judges 6:3 says, whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, the Amalekites and other Eastern peoples invaded the country. They camped on the land and they ruined the crops all the way to Gaza, all the way to the coast. And they didn't spare a living thing for Israel. In other words, not just the plants were destroyed, neither sheep nor cattle nor all the livestock was destroyed too. Judges 6:5 says they came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count them or their camels. They invaded the land to ravage it. And this went on for seven years until finally Judges 6:6 says Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help.

In other words, they're going send another leader like Deborah or like Caleb's little brother or Joshua. And instead they get deputy five. Judges 6:11 says, here's where we meet Gideon. "The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abbezrite." By the way, have you ever heard of the Abbezrites before? You know, you know how you read the Bible and it talks about the Hittites and the Israelites and the cellulites and the electrolytes and all of this. And you're like, I don't know who these people are, but they probably all knew back then who these were. A lot of people knew what those other ones were. The Abbezrites, even back then, people would have said the Abbe. Who? Because they were a nobody. Nobody, even then, had ever heard of these people. They were that inconsequential.

So the angel of the Lord went and sat down under the oak that belonged to Joash the Abbezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a wine press to keep it from the Midianites. Now, what's happening here? Let me explain with a video. To thresh any grain, what you do is you take a pile of grain and you put it in a basket and you toss it up in the air on a windy day over and over. And the heavy grain falls back into the basket. The lighter chaff, the stalks, the dust, that all blows away. And so, of course, usually you do this up on a plain or a hill where it's breezy. Problem is the Midianites would watch. And if they saw a cloud of chaff puffing up, they knew someone's got grain. Let's go steal it.

So Gideon is hiding in a wine press. And archaeologists have actually discovered actual ancient wine presses from ancient times in Israel like this one. These were underground pits where the juice was pressed out of the grapes that were stored there. So picture it. Gideon is threshing wheat inside a subterranean vault to hide from the Midianites. That means dust is everywhere. Gideon is literally in the pits. He's irritable. He's itchy. He's hot. And once in a while his head pokes above the ground like a gopher. Any Midianites up there? Nope. Any Midianites? Nope. Any Midianites suddenly? Wah! He sees something. A man sitting under the family oak tree. And this man apparently looked just like a normal guy, but Gideon's a little alarmed because he kept looking. And suddenly there's this guy standing there that's sidled up, right? Noiselessly. But he looks just like a normal guy. Doesn't look like an angel that's glowing. And you can tell because of the conversation that comes next.

Watch what happens. Judges 6:12 says, "When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, 'The Lord is with you, you mighty warrior.'" Mighty warrior? More like little gopher, right? I love the way some other translations try to capture this Hebrew phrase. "'The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor.'" "'The Lord is with you, you mighty man of fearless courage.'" This is meant to be kind of a joke because Gideon is hiding in the ground. And God says this. Let me just give you the big idea of this message right at the top. God sees you, not for what you are. God sees you for what you can be. Jot that down in your notes because he sees you with a different set of eyes than you often see yourself. He sees your potential.

Remember in Acts when a man named Ananias is told by God, "Go and heal a man called Saul." And Ananias says, "Are you kidding me? That's the same guy who's been dragging off Christians, persecuting them, approving of their death. And I'm a Christian. I'm not going to go find this guy and heal him." This man is my chosen vessel who will take the gospel to kings. Saul hadn't done anything to prove that yet, but God saw what he would become. Or what about David? Everybody else sees David as a runt and God sees him as royalty. Or what about Peter, the most impetuous, unstable disciple? And Jesus says, "Hey, I'm going to change your name to Peter from Simon." Peter means rocky because you're going to be my rock. And he didn't mean anything but that up to that point, just like God looks at a cowering guy hiding at a wine press and says, "You mighty man of valor."

Now what happens next? Do you think Gideon pops up out of that hole and says, "I'm ready, Lord. I totally believe you. I'm changed." No. Gideon goes, "Right. Not me. I don't see it. I don't see myself that way and I don't see God that way either." And what I want to do here is I want to look at three ways Gideon is just like you and me at times. I totally relate to all three of these at times in my life. And I think you will too. Sujat this down. Gideon hesitates when God calls him because first he's just flat out discouraged. He's so discouraged that he looks at this man and he says, "Let me just shut down this religious conversation before it even starts. Pardon me, my Lord."

And using the word "Lord" here is Gideon just being polite to this stranger. It's like saying, "Sir," he's not calling him the Lord because at this point he still thinks this is just some guy. Pardon me, my Lord," Gideon replied, "But if the Lord is with us, then why has all this happened to us? Where are all the miracles, all the wonders that our ancestors told us about when they talked about how the Lord brought us out of Egypt? In other words, where's all the miracles in my Bible? But now, by the way, notice the three words in this paragraph that are the three words that shut down your potential. If, why, and but. You say to yourself, "If this, why that, but this?" And Gideon says, "But now the Lord has abandoned us. He's not with us and he's given us under the hand of the Midianites."

Wow. Stranger I don't know who you are or what your agenda is, but let me just tell you how it is. Let's just be honest. Haven't you ever prayed this prayer to God? If the Lord is with me, why is all this bad stuff happening to me? Where are all the miracles that I read about in the Bible? I don't feel God at all. In fact, I'm mad at God. Gideon's just trying to slam the door on this conversation by saying, "I got a lot of questions that I don't think you can answer, stranger. I have a lot of questions." And Gideon's specific question is, why are all these bad things happening?

Listen, maybe you feel like, "I don't know if I can be a Christ follower because I have a lot of questions too, a ton of questions for God like." Gideon's question, "How come there's so much suffering?" Well look at God's answer to him. That's fascinating. Judges 6:14 says, "The Lord turned to him and said, 'Well, go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand. Am I not sending you?'" God doesn't get into some long philosophical debate. He just says, "Yeah, I don't like that either, so go because part of my answer to the problem that you don't like is you." And this is super important because when it comes to why is this or that happening to me, our faith is not primarily explanatory.

Our faith is not primarily explanatory. Now this doesn't mean that there aren't answers in the Bible to the big questions like, why is there evil? In fact, there's a great book called Reasons for God by Tim Keller that we have at our book cart in the lobby that answers a lot of those questions. What I mean by this is God is just not going to appear to you, tap you on the shoulder every time you go through something tough and explain the reason for every single thing that's bad that is happening to you. A lot of people wait a lifetime for that conversation. God just explained to me why this bad stuff's happening to me. And even in the Bible, that conversation rarely happens. And our faith is not magical. It's not magical when it comes to tough times.

What I mean by that is the idea, if I pray in the right way enough times with enough sincerity, then I'm going to get exactly what I pray for. And this is super important because so many people see Christianity like it's a lucky rabbit's foot to ward off evil. But our faith is not primarily explanatory or magical. It is missional, missional. God gives Gideon a mission. God says, "Go, you're part of the solution. Am I not sending you?" And you know what? God sees the sorrow in the world today. He sees the suffering in the world today. And he gives you and me a mission too. Jesus says, "As the Father sent me, I am sending you." You see people lost. You see people suffering. You don't like it. Then go. Am I not sending you? Do the Lord's work in the lost world?

You know why? Because this actually answers your questions better than explanations do. When you act, it helps heal the world and it actually helps heal you. Listen, this is part of the reason that I hope you get out to the Connect Expo this morning and talk to reps from our ministries about getting involved. And this is why when you see or hear the hurricane coverage today, I want you to pray for them and to remember that we are already working with local churches in Texas and soon in Florida and for years to come, just like after Katrina and Rita, we will be sending out relief teams because we are part of the solution to suffering in the world. God says, "Go in the strength you have. Am I not sending you?"

So Gideon's discouraged and God says, "Hey, let's move forward together. Let's do something about this." That's part of the solution to your discouragement. But Gideon is also just defeated. He's just flat out defeated. He's been pummeled by reality. Judges 6:15 says, you got to love this, "Pardon me, my Lord." And I can almost hear a tremor in his voice as he's trying to keep his anger under control. But how can I save Israel? Because my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, that's his tribe, and I'm the weakest in my family. In other words, people in my clan are the losers that everybody else in Israel looks down on and I'm the one that all the losers look down on. His second objection is, "I am weak. I don't have power. I don't have influence. I'm a big fat zero. I can't summon an army against the Midianites because no one will follow me."

God's answer, next verse, "The Lord answered, 'But I will be with you. You may be small. You might be weak, but you have me.'" Listen, God never promises, "If you have faith, you will never have bad times. You will never suffer. You will never get cancer. You will always get healed." What he promises is, "I will be with you always." And Jesus promises this too. He lived with us, he died for us, and then he rose from the dead so that his spirit can be with us now wherever we go. So that's his promise to you too.

But Gideon's not just discouraged and defeated, he's also frankly doubtful. He is very doubtful that this is even God or some messenger from God talking to him. It says in Judges 6:17, next verse, Gideon replied, "Okay, if I have now found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it's really you talking to me. Just give me a sign." My guess is everyone at some point has said this prayer to God. I certainly have. When I was dating Lori, who's now my wife, "Should I marry her?" I was so confused. For four years I was dating her. I was so confused about what's God's will. This is such an important decision. I kept begging God for signs. I literally prayed this prayer. I'm not proud of it, but I said, "God, I want to know whether or not to marry her. It's within your power to let the clouds spell out her name. God please, anything." And finally I realized what the sign was. God did give me a sign. Do you know what it was? I liked her a lot. And God said, "Do you love her? Is she good people? Then marry her, you numbskull."

You know? But we want signs, but God, can you arrange my Cheerios to spell her name? And Gideon does the same exact thing. He's had a conversation with God, but his third objection is, "I got a lot of doubts and I need a sign." And I want you to see what happens next, because Gideon makes lunch for this visitor, and I don't think he ever expected what happens next. I think he thought he was going to negotiate with the visitor and demand some kind of elaborate sign. But what happens is he brings lunch and the Lord goes, "Thanks for the lunch." Touches it with his staff, and it's all consumed by fire instantly. Gideon probably screams again, "Ah!" And it says, "When Gideon," Judges 6:22 says, "When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the Lord, he exclaimed, 'Alas, sovereign Lord, I've seen the angel of the Lord face to face.'" Now he's afraid he's going to die. But the Lord said to him, "Peace. Do not be afraid. You're not going to die."

First Gideon's doubting, and now he's in full-on freak-out mode, and the Lord's like, "Come on, calm down." Now you might be thinking, "Okay, but why don't I get a sign? Why doesn't God destroy my lunch with fire? Today I'd be a strong believer, right? Why doesn't God do stuff like that?" Well first, if you did pray in this service, "God, if you consumed my lunch with fire, that would be a sign to me. You did it for Gideon." If your lunch was suddenly consumed by fire today, you know what I think would happen? The next day you doubt what you'd seen, you'd want God to do it again. Why do I think that? Because that's what happens with Gideon. Gideon gets this remarkable sign. He goes off and rallies a little army, and then he says, "Now God, if this is really, really you, give me another sign." And God does.

And Gideon thinks, "Well, maybe that wasn't God. Maybe that was just sort of a natural occurrence." And so he says, "Okay, don't be mad, but give me another sign to show me that it's really, really you." Basically three days in a row, he asks for yet another sign, yet another sign, yet another sign. Now, is that story in the Bible because that's how we're supposed to act? Of course not. Gideon could barely keep his faith alive for 24 hours at a time. This is not a good example. Gideon's stories in the Bible is sort of a humorous example. Listen, of how weak Gideon was, yet God still used him. That's the point. This story is not about the power of Gideon's faith. It's about the power of God.

That's what all these stories about biblical characters are in the Bible to explain, how God uses weak people, because we have small faith, but he's a big God. This is so important because our tendency when we hear anybody talk about "have faith" is to think, "Okay, that means that I need to believe and have absolutely zero doubts ever for even one second." But God knows that a lot of us cannot muster up doubt-free faith in anything. I mean, if you're built like me, I can rarely have doubt-free faith about anything. I get in my car, but I don't have faith that my car is going to be able to last until I get home. I've got doubts. And when it comes to something this huge, you might say, "God, I want to believe, but I've got doubts. I am weak. I have questions." And the point of this story is God looks at you and goes, "Great, you're exactly the kind of person I'm looking for because you're like one of these saints in the Bible."

Now, before we leave this thing about signs, I do want to sound kind of a warning here because like Gideon, we as believers can become addicted to signs and wonders and miracles. You could call it Gideonitis. Just give me another sign. I believe if we all thought about it, we've all had signs, stories of God's comfort, of God's provision, of God's blessing in our lives. And the answer is not to say, "God, do that same exact thing again." The answer is, "Remember it again." Those monuments of faith. Remember when Jesus multiplied the bread and the fish, and the very next day the people said, "Give us another sign." And Jesus says, "Well, first, I already gave you a sign. And second, the signs all point to me, and you've got me."

The signs are not the point. I'm the point. As it says here on the screen, at some point our faith must be about God and not the things God does for us. Got that? So don't get addicted to the idea of signs. Look at the one to whom the signs point. So Gideon goes through all this, and I just have to show you one funny detail of what comes next. God goes, "Okay, Gideon. God won. Cut down the altar to Baal over in your village." And after all this incredible experience, it says, Judges 6:27 says, "Gideon did as the Lord told him, but because he was afraid of his family and the townspeople, he did it at night, rather than in the daytime." Aren't you glad that verse is in there? Because honestly, if it had said, "And he pulled it down bravely in broad daylight," I couldn't identify.

And after all this sacred stuff, Gideon is still like, "Lord, I'll follow you secretly," you know? And after this, you expect God to say, "Thou chicken. Thou weasel." But you know what God says? I'll take it. Gideon, you're still my chosen man. Next job, go to battle, and Gideon defeats the Midianites with just 300 soldiers. That's another example of how it's not about our might, but God's power. It's just like when that man says to Jesus, "I believe, but help my unbelief." And Jesus goes, "I'll take it." Or like when the disciples say, "Well, Jesus, all we have are five loaves and two fishes. What good are these?" And Jesus says, "I'll take it." God doesn't look for great men or great women. He looks for defeated, discouraged, doubtful men and women, because that is the place where greatness is born, when His Holy Spirit meets us in our weakness.

Now, in case you're thinking, "Well, all this is great for Gideon, but nobody appeared to me and said all this. How does this apply to me at all?" I want to draw your attention to something fascinating, a little detail that's easy to miss. Notice that whenever the narrator refers to this person who appears to Gideon, it says, "The Lord answered," and it's in all caps in our English Bibles. That's the way the translators are showing that in the original Hebrew, a proper name for God is being used here. In other words, appearing as a man, this was the Lord. What's happening here? This is kind of mind-blowing, but I believe this was a pre-incarnate appearance of the second person of the Trinity, Jesus.

And exactly like He said this to cowardly Gideon, "Greetings, mighty man of valor." He sees everyone here through the eyes of grace, too. How does He see you? I want you to flip your notes over to the back where it says, "How does God see me?" And I want to encourage you to take these notes, keep these verses, look at them throughout this week. Let's just look at the first two or three, verses like Ephesians 1:4, "He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight." And you know that when you trust in Christ, even when you are like Gideon in the pit of failure and fear, God looks at you and He sees you by His grace as holy and blameless.

Or look at 1 John 3:1, "See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God." And that is what we are. One more, 1 Peter 2:9, "You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession." That's you. "That you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness and into His wonderful light." In other words, listen, God greets you right now. He says, "Greetings, my mighty child, my mighty son, my mighty daughter, I have chosen you for greatness. I see you as holy and blameless." And then He says, like He said to Gideon, "Peace, do not be afraid. You're not going to die, not eternally, because Jesus provided the ultimate sacrifice. And now am I not sending you."

And remember that what He says to Gideon, He says to all of His followers, "And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. You are not in this alone. The Lord is with you, you, mighty one of valor." And I can't wait to see what God will do through you if you have just a mustard seed-sized faith enough to believe this. Here's the bottom line to this story. If you're discouraged, defeated, doubtful today, see yourself as God sees you.

You know, we started with the story of the blind football player recruited by USC, Jake Olson. And the fact that his disability is blindness makes it such a perfect metaphor, doesn't it? Because you've heard in church about how God loves you and calls you, and maybe your response is, "I just can't see it." You can't see it. You can't see how God is going to do anything good through you. You feel like you're still in darkness. Don't let your vision become an impediment to how God wants to use you. Do not bench yourself. The coach is calling you onto the field, so get on the field and watch as God does amazing things. Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the story of Gideon. I'm so glad this is in the Bible. And God, for the people here today who look at other Christians who seem so strong in their faith, yet they feel doubtful and defeated, they've got a lot of questions, I pray they would hear you calling, "Well, I'm sending you. You mighty one of valor, you're exactly the kind of people that I use." And God, especially if people have been hesitating about taking that first step of faith in you, I pray that they would say, "Yeah, I've got a lot of questions. I've got a lot of fears. I am weak. But God, here I am. I take this first step of faith in you, my Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for calling me." In Jesus' name, amen.