Sermon Tone Analysis

On-Call

This week, for the first time at my new job, I have been “on-call”.

On-Call is a big deal at our company.

If any of the dozens of websites and apis that are serving thousands of users per minutes… if any one of a thousand things that could go wrong goes wrong…

They are going to call me.

And I am supposed to figure out the problem and solve it and save the day.

When there’s something strange, in the neighborhood.

Who you gonna call?

Call Dusty!

And that’s terrifying because I haven’t been there all that long and I don’t know all the things.

I can’t fix all the things, and the weight of responsibility is WAY too heavy.

The responsibility is on me.

The Weight of Responsibility

But that’s nothing.

The other day, a very good friend of mine called me in crisis.

And we got together and started talking and he was asking questions about his purpose, and my purpose and what does it all mean...

and basically asking me to “give a reason for the hope that I have.”

And the weight of the moment crashed in on me.

I am supposed to share Jesus here, and if I do a good enough job, he could repent and then he’d cry, and then I’d cry and then we could pray right here in this restaurant… and it’s my job to SAVE my friend!

Now I know that isn’t quite right… but I pick up the weight of that responsibility and put it on me.

Or, I stand up here week after week with the purpose of bringing God’s Word into my life and into your life, and praying that you are learning, and following Jesus, and taking Next Steps and the responsibility of all of that can be absolutely crippling and I hear so many stories of pastor’s crashing and burning because they can’t bear the WEIGHT of it!

And God has placed you in ministry.

In your neighborhoods, in your families, in your workplaces, in your schools and in this church.

Calling you to lead, calling you to serve...

Do you ever feel the weight of that?

The responsibility?

To win the prize, or to save the lost, or to help the hurting… whatever that goal is, the weight of responsibility to achieve it!

God doesn’t need you.

You don’t have to achieve or create the result.

You don’t have to win the victory.

You are privilege to play a part.

Your responsibility is to do

Gideon and the 300

Narrowing down the men.

Judges 7:1-2

Judges 7:3

Now if you are an insecure leader… that’s a major issue.

If you are a battlefield commander with a brain, that’s a problem.

You just lost 2/3rds of your army.

And think about the morale of the army!

Did they hear God? No, but Gideon says he “heard the LORD” and sent 2/3rds the army home.

Judges 7:4-

<Picture of me lapping at stream>

No apparent rhyme or reason for why the men who lapped get to stay.

Were the other men more cautious because they kneeled and looked around?

Were the lappers more trusting because they didn’t?

Who shoves their face in a stream and laps???

300 guys, that’s who!

What about the ones who had canteens?

Nobody brought a canteen with a water filter?

The text doesn’t say.

Likely it’s just about the numbers, a divinely arbitrary reason to send people home.

And forget about losing 2/3rds the army, how about 97%!

That is insane.

What is morale at now in those 300?

Do they feel like a lucky elite, or sacrificial dummies.

These guys are lapping water with their faces, maybe they aren’t the sharpest bunch and they don’t know what’s going on!

He goes to the camp.

He hears the bizarre dream.

A cake smashes the tent flat.

His friend has a bizarre interpretation: This is the sword of Gideon and we’re all going to die!

(If I were making this story up, I would have made up a dream that made WAY more sense).

Judges 7:15-18

Judges 7:19-

They called out now to all the tribes again.

Gathered

God Doesn’t Need You

How many men does God need to deliver Israel from its enemies?

Not 30,000.

Not 10,000.

Not 300.

Not 1.

Zero.

God needs zero men, zero help.

He is fully and completely and perfectly capable of just defeating Midian on his own, or changing their minds so they go home, or rending space and time so they never were…

The “problem” is not a problem for God.

He has literally infinite options at His disposal.

And, in this story God wants to make that so absolutely clear:

Look guys, I can do this without an army.

With one hand tied behind my back.

It isn’t about the challenge… it never is.

It isn’t about “solving” the problem!

So what does it mean that He does invite Gideon into the story?

What does it mean that He does invite 300 Israelites to participate?

God doesn’t use people to get ministry done.

God uses ministry to get people done.

It isn’t using people to get ministry done.

Working with my Dad

Using ministry to get people done?

Growing up in a construction zone.

There were always projects and, when we weren’t breaking windows and injuring one another, my Dad would often have us join in on a construction process.

I remember replacing windows together, painting walls.

Now, did my Dad need my help?

No, at that age he spent far more time teaching me and correcting my mistakes then the entire job would have taken.

And it wasn’t really the long game either, though I got better I don’t think the net gain of my construction skills ever paid off for that house.

But to this day, I learn more about my Dad, I connect more with my Dad while working beside him than any other time.

Now what are all the reasons why?

I grew.

I grew in my relationship with him.

I grew in my understanding of him and the task and myself.