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Courageous Action Heb. 11:32
Judges 6, 7, 8:24-27

When the late Nadine Stair, of Louisville, Kentucky, was 85 years old, she was asked what she would do if she had her life to live over again. "I’d make more mistakes next time," she said. "I’d relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I’d have fewer imaginary ones.

You see, I’m one of those people who live sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I’ve had my moments, and if I had to do it over again, I’d have more of them. In fact, I’d try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I’ve been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, and a raincoat. If I had to do it over again, I would travel lighter than I have."


"If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies." Bits & Pieces, January 5, 1995, pp. 13-14

Nadine addresses a way of life we all struggle with at some point. There are two equal and opposite forces that act on us all the time. One pull says, "Take the safe, easy, comfortable way. Go after security." The other voice simply says, "Take the risk." The choice we make determines who we are and where we end up when all’s said and done. Are you are risk-taker or a "play-it-safer"?

"You can live on bland food so as to avoid an ulcer; drink no tea or coffee or other stimulants, in the name of health; go to bed early and stay away from night life; avoid all controversial subjects so as never to give offense; mind your own business and avoid involvement in other people’s problems; spend money only on necessities and save all you can. You can still break your neck in the bathtub, and it will serve you right."Eileen Guder, God, But I’m Bored, quoted in Holy Sweat, Tim Hansel, 1987, Word Books Publisher, p. 48

Playwright Neil Simon said, "If no one ever took risks, Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor." Today in the Word, February 28, 1997, p. 35

"One of the reasons why mature people stop growing and learning," says John Gardner, "is that they become less and less willing to risk failure." Eating Problems for Breakfast by Tim Hansel, Word Publishing, 1988, p. 32.

It takes courageous faith to hear and obey the call of God.

This is the third sermon in the Faith in Action series based on the men and women mentioned in Hebrews 11. Today I want to speak to you for a few minutes on being courageous.

The story of Gideon begins in chapter six of the book of Judges. Here we find the nation of Israel, in typical fashion, turning away from God and doing their own thing. Because of their lack of faithfulness God handed the people over to marauders who’d come in every year at harvest time and take their crops by force. This happened for seven years before the people cried out to God to save them.

We first read about Gideon while he is playing it safe. To keep the looters from taking his family’s food Gideon threshed his wheat in a winepress. Normally you’d thresh wheat on level ground so the wind could blow away the chaff as you tossed it in the air. But Gideon went about the work in a pit, so no one would see him.

It’s here that God finds Gideon cowering. He calls him and says, "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior." Apparently, God sees something that neither Gideon nor the reader of the story can see. God said to Gideon, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand.” Some of you may feel just like Gideon when he responded to God in chapter 6 of the book of Judges. He said, “But Lord, how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh and I am the least in my family.”

You and I are being called to exercise our faith. We are called as Christ followers to sometimes do things for God that seem to be way out of our comfort zone. Based on the life of Gideon there are some definite steps that God took him through in the process of making him courageous.

Let’s look at these steps as they developed in the life of Gideon.

1. Admit that you have drifted from God’s way.

The first thing God calls Gideon to do is clean up his own backyard. The people of his own village and even his father practiced Baal worship. God was eventually going to deliver his people from the invading tribes, but first the hometown sin needed to be dealt with. You see we can’t be useful to God publicly, unless we’re faithful privately. Thus, Gideon’s first call to take a risk was housecleaning.

“That same night the Lord said to him, ‘Take the second bull from your father’s herd, the one seven year’s old. Tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.’” Judges 6:25

Can you imagine how hard this first task would have been? God wants him to destroy the sin of his own father and then sacrifice one of his father’s bulls.

God will not call you to do anything for Him until you have dealt with the areas of your life that are contrary to God’s word. Just as Israel drifted away from God time and time again, you and I can get caught up in the world in which we live. We can find ourselves drifting away from the Bible and what God wants us to know, be and do.

Sometimes it is healthy to pause for a moment or two and allow God to search your life and you priorities and your motives.

Pray a prayer asking God to search your heart. Ask Him to reveal your life the way He sees it. Allow Him to speak to you and change you.

When is the last time you heard or sensed God in your life convicting you of something you know you shouldn’t be considering or doing.

That is a normal part of being a Christ follower. The question that must be answered is what do you do with what He shows you?

To do anything courageous for God you must first clean up any areas where you have drifted away from God and His word.

There is a second and no less important step that God called Gideon to do.

2. Adjust your life to God’s discipline.

“Then build a proper kind of altar to the Lord you God on top of this height using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second bull as a burnt offering.” Judges 6:26

Gideon was not only to break down the altar of Baal, but he was also commissioned to rebuild the altars of the Lord.

You and I must be ever vigilant to make sure that we make the adjustments that God sometimes wants us to make in our lives.

For too long many church people have been content to ride out their relationship with God based on an encounter with God that happened years ago. There is nothing fresh or nothing new.

This is often why whole churches can fall into the dangerous abyss of straying away from God’s will. I don’t know why we think that is not possible when the whole country of Israel strayed from God on a regular basis.

Often the reason there is so much tension in certain churches is because someone is hearing God call them back to the mission that He wants them to be engaged in. There is nothing that will cause more conflict than to try to get religious people to admit that they made a wrong turn and have gone the wrong way.

God wants us to seek His ways and walk in His ways. We must adjust our lives according to His word and will.

There is another step that Gideon took in his pursuit of courage.

3. Ask God for a sign to keep from doubting.

There may come a time in your life when you sense God asking you to do something but you are afraid and don’t want to do it because you are not sure that it would be God’s will or the right thing.

It is okay to ask God for affirmation that you are doing the right thing.

“Gideon said to God, ‘If you will save Israel by me hand as you have promised—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.’ And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water.

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. This time make the fleece dry and the ground covered with dew. That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.’”


Now, most of us are not going to go to these lengths to hear from God. It requires great faith and courage to even ask God from a sign in this way.

Here’s what I think we should remember when it comes to knowing God’s will.

God is Sovereign. He is all knowing and created everything as we know it that is in existence. He is all powerful.

When I am really in doubt over something I know that God has the capacity to reveal His will to me.

He can find a way to communicate clearly. More than once in my life, I have reverently prayed and asked God to reveal His will. In fact, I have waited a time or two until I really knew that God was asking me to do something. When I am in doubt I don’t need to go any further until I know that I know that God is in whatever it is that I am being asked to do.

4. Accept God’s directions even when they seem ridiculous.

In the story of Gideon he faced a formidable enemy. Judges 6:2 says, “Because the power of the Midianites was oppressive. . .”Judges 6:5 says, “They came up with their livestock and tents like swarms of locusts.”

Gideon assembled 32,000 men but God told him to reduce his forces. Can you imagine the press a few weeks ago if before the war in Iraq started our President began sending most of the soldiers home? Can you even begin to think what would be said? The Congress would probably intervene.

God through a process found in Judges 7 reduced the number of Gideon’s army from 32,000 to 300.

God has made a habit out of doing much with very little. He specializes in using people that no one else would think could do very much.

You and I must be willing to accept the fact that God can and will do things through people who let Him work in His own way.

It takes courage to let God work in His way. His ways are not our ways.

He closed lion’s mouths.
He enabled people to walk in the midst of fiery furnaces.
He provided a way through the water, in fact the Bible calls it dry ground.
He guide Israel with a cloud by day and fire by night.
He has spoken through unlikely prophets and He chose disciples who were unlearned and ignorant men.
He ignore conventional wisdom
He is God and He will do it His way.

When He does it his way He will get the glory and praise.

5. Avoid the downfall that sometimes occurs after great wins’.

God will help those who seek Him to do courage things. There is no doubt about that.

There is a principle that we must remember. Too often when God has done something we are tempted to feel like somehow we deserve a little credit. The next thing you know we have forgotten God and the fact that all we have we owe to Him.

Judges 8:23-27 Read the story.

Don’t let pride be a snare to you. When God has helped you give Him the praise and thanks. Don’t allow yourself to believe your own press clippings. It’s not you it’s God. Don’t ever forget it. Everything you are and are becoming is because God is working on you side. We have celebrated the independence of our great nation this week. This came from great sacrifice and personal loss for many people. Our independence is a result of great courage.

I don’t know what God is calling you to do but I want you to watch an example of courage in action. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was born Sept. 8, 1828, in Brewer, Maine, the eldest of five children. Facing the much larger city of Bangor across the Penobscot River, Brewer was in Chamberlain's youth a small farming and ship-building community. Lawrence -- as his family called him -- worked on his father's farm and, like many other promising young men of the time, had some experience of teaching school.

Chamberlain knew little of soldiering -- despite a short time as a boy at a military school at Ellsworth -- but he was keenly aware that his father had commanded troops in the bloodless Aroostook War of 1839 with Canada, his grandfather had been locally prominent in the War of 1812, and his great-grandfathers had participated in the Revolution. When the sectional crisis led to civil war in 1861, Chamberlain felt a strong urge to fight to save the union. (Although sympathetic to the plight of the slaves, he is not known to have been an abolitionist and showed little interest, after the war, in the cause of the freedmen.) But the college was reluctant to lose his services. Offered a year's travel with pay in Europe in 1862 to study languages, Chamberlain instead volunteered his military services to Maine's governor. He was soon made lieutenant colonel of the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment. From Antietam in 1862 to the triumphal grand review of the armies in May of 1865, Chamberlain saw much of the war in the East, including 24 battles and numerous skirmishes. He was wounded six times -- once, almost fatally -- and had six horses shot from under him.

He is best remembered for two great events: the action at Little Round Top, on the second day of Gettysburg (2 July 1863), when then-Colonel Chamberlain and the 20th Maine held the extreme left flank of the Union line against a fierce rebel attack, and the surrender of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox, when Grant chose Chamberlain to receive the formal surrender of weapons and colors (12 April 1865). Always a chivalrous man, Chamberlain had his men salute the defeated Confederates as they marched by, evidence of his admiration of their valor and of Grant's wish to encourage the rebel armies still in the field to accept the peace.

In the incredible film entitled Gettysburg the charge down the hill at Little Round Top is one of the most moving and memorable scenes. I want you to watch courage in action.

Video Clip from the movie Gettysburg.

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little, when we arrive safely because we have sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess, we have lost our thirst for the waters of life; having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity; and in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of the new Heaven to dim.Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery; where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. We ask you to push back the horizons of our hopes; and to push into the future in strength, courage, hope, and love.

Sir Frances Drake

2003/07/06