From Zero to Hero

Sunday Worship 15 February 2009
Speaker: Pr Lim Soon Hock
Text: Judges 7:1-25

Lesson from a parking meter: we lose money standing still!

There is a place for resting and renewal in order to gain strength, to move forward, but standing still perpetually will cause us to miss out on opportunities and our destiny.

God means for us to move forward for our own inward good and for an outward goal.

Who was Gideon? He was a farmer, full of fear, lacking in self-esteem and faith in God. The success of Gideon was more about God than about Gideon. It started with Gideon's first encounter with God. How did God greet Gideon? "When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, "The LORD is with you, mighty warrior."(6:12)

God saw past Gideon's weaknesses and saw his innate strength and potential. After all, God made Gideon. He spoke and awoke the warrior in Gideon: a prophetic word to Gideon's spirit.

If we are to become who we are meant to be, we must:

1. Let God speak into lives.

God may speak directly to us, or sometimes through people, as Paul did to Timothy: 2 Timothy ^"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline."
However, we need to be careful to check every word with the Holy Scriptures, whether we are the speaker or the recipient of the prophetic word.

We must also practise affirming other people's potential and giving encouraging words.

2. See what God sees in us.

Do we know who we are in Christ? Paul in Romans 8:37 wrote that, "... in all these things (trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword, or death), we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

We need to read the Holy Scriptures, and believe what it says.

3. Believe what God sees in us and act upon it.

In the end, it isn't so much about ourselves or our ability, as it is about God.

Before God gives a man a task, He first makes the man.
Before God gives a man a message, He first makes the messenger.

We can see how God worked in Gideon's life as well as in other figures in the Bible: Abraham, a man who did not have much faith was made a man of faith. Gideon was changed from a coward into a mighty warrior. It takes time to develop a man, by a process of training and testing: each test passed leads him to a higher level, for one needs to be proven faithful in little things before one can be given greater things to do.

Gideon responded well to each test and so moved on to the next level. God's question to him as to each of us is not "Can you do it?" but "Can I trust you?"

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