From the Penthouse to the Outhouse

Thank you for being warm and friendly and family like you always are. Thank you for doing that. Kind of wondering why I’m here. Well, normally, Jeremy probably would have been normally coming back from Israel about this time. And I’m just thankful he didn’t go. But you want him to go again, you know, when they go again. And the reason is, is a trip to Israel will change how you look at the Bible. A trip to Israel will change how he preaches. I mean, he’s already a great preacher, but it’ll change a lot. It’ll change how he explains the Holy Land to you because he’s been there. And so it changed it for me. So we want him to go. We just don’t want him to go right now.

And so, you know, just keep in your prayers, our government and our military and all the folks that are involved in this on every side. What we want is peace. That’s what we want. And so, but this morning, what I want you as we do our time of prayer together, I want you to pray for your one. I mean, everybody here has somebody in their life who is close to them, but far from God. And so I want you to pray for your one. And as you get together and you pray, call that person out by name. There’s something about saying the name. You don’t have to say the whole name. Just maybe their first name. But just say, you know, Lord, just make yourself real, this person. Lord, use me if I’m to be that person to share with them or invite them.

And we’ve got a lot of things happening at Sauldam Baptist Church. One of them, again, is the wild game dinner that we’ve got coming up. That can be your one that you invite to. So I want you to, you know, get in clusters and, you know, groups. And, but I want you this morning to pray for that one. That God would reveal Himself in such a way that they have to take notice. So let’s do that right now.

Father, thank You for putting men and women on our hearts. Thank You for letting us get close enough that we can actually call them by name. But You know them better than we do. You died for all of us, especially in our sin. You loved us before we could have ever first even thought about loving You, which absolutely blows me away. Thanks for loving me. Thanks for loving us. Thanks for loving us so much that You went to a cross and You died for our sin. When we couldn’t have taken care of the issue and the problem, You did. And now all we have to do is embrace You. Because that’s what gets us to spend eternity with You. It’s what we do with You. It’s not how good we are. Hoping the good outweighs the bad. It’s about what we do with You. Whether we let You come into our life. Whether we let You take control of our life through every situation. This morning, Lord, help us to realize this is Your time. You have a message for us. So help my words be Your words. Help my words and Your words penetrate hearts and minds. Lord, we want to be different when we leave this place. So help us do that. We ask this in a name that’s above every name. The awesome name of Jesus. And all God’s people said.

We are in Judges chapter 8 today. If you’ve got your Bibles, I’d like you to turn with me there. This is kind of, I think, payback. Because when I was a pastor and had a youth guy. And I mean, one time we went through the book of Judges. I mean, he came and said, Al, why do you get all the good judges? I mean, I get Shamgar and Ehud. You get Samson and Gideon and all those good guys. And so I’m actually preaching a chapter that I have never preached before. Forty years in the ministry. And I mean, I went through this and I went, I’ve never preached on this. And it’s really the end of Gideon’s life. Gideon is chapter 6, 7, and now 8. We know more about Gideon as a judge than any other judge in this entire book of the Bible. Because more is written about him. And so that’s kind of where we are. We’re in chapter 8. We’re winding down his life. The title is unique. I remember when I heard it the first time, it was by a football coach named Johnny Majors. Johnny was a great running back at the University of Tennessee. I think came in second in the Heisman his senior year. Went on to be a great coach. Defeated, I mean, led University of Pittsburgh with Tony Dorsett to the national championship. In 1976, I know, because it was against my Georgia Bulldogs that he did that. But Johnny was, man, he was at the top of the world. Within two years, they were looking to get rid of him at the University of Pittsburgh. And he made this statement. It’s a short distance from the penthouse to the outhouse. And it’s true. I mean, the way we look at life is what have you done for me lately? But people are watching our lives. People are watching what we do.

And I want to just share with you, the whole purpose of the passage today is it’s not so much how you start. It’s how you finish. And what we’re going to see in this passage of scripture is that Gideon really doesn’t finish well, which is sad. We go back to 1994. If any of you are basketball fans, the NBA draft came out with three great athletes that came out of college that year. One was by the name of Grant Hill, another Jason Kidd, another Glenn Robinson. They were so good that they were all vying for rookie of the year. What would happen at the end of the season that year is two of them would actually tie. It’s only third time in all of NBA history that two people actually tied for rookie of the year. And the other guy got second. And he got like second place.

Let’s go back to 1945. That same year. If there was a draft on evangelists, three evangelists emerged on the scene. One was by the name of Billy Graham. The other was named Chuck Templeton. And another named Bron Clifford. They were all in their mid-20s. In fact, Billy Graham was hired as the first time he was a full-time evangelist was with Youth for Christ. They grabbed up on him. One of his close friends, also Chuck Templeton, had an amazing career. All close friends. But here’s the deal. Everybody’s heard of Billy Graham. How many of you have ever heard of Chuck Templeton? How many of you have ever heard of Bron Clifford? Probably none of you. But let me just share something with them. If you were to ask anybody about that time, who are you going to put your money on as evangelist? Billy Graham would probably come in third.

In 1946, the National Association of Evangelicals published an article on men who were best used by God in that organization’s five-year history. And they highlighted Chuck Templeton’s ministry. Billy Graham’s not even mentioned in the article. They said that Templeton would be the next Babe Ruth of evangelism. Bron Clifford was another 25-year-old fireball. Many believe he was the most gifted and powerful preacher the world has ever seen or had seen in centuries. He preached to thousands in Miami. And they would line up 10 and 12 deep just to get in the auditorium to hear this guy. One time he was preaching at chapel at Baylor. The president of the university says, turn off the bells, the class bells. We don’t want to interrupt this guy. And he preached for two hours and 15 minutes. Now, if I preached for two hours and 15 minutes by the time I was done, I’d be preaching to pews, I’m sure. But this guy had him on the edge of his seat for two hours and 15 minutes.

They said at the age of 25, Bron Clifford touched more lives, influenced more leaders, set more attendance records than any other clergyman his age in American history. He was tall, handsome, eloquent, intelligent. Hollywood invited him to try out for the role of Marcellus in the robe. He had everything. Five years later, let’s look at the other guys. Chuck Templeton would leave the ministry to pursue a career in radio and television as a commentator and a newspaper columnist. He decided he was no longer a believer in Jesus Christ and wasn’t even in the game any longer. He no longer believed the claims of the validity of Jesus himself. By 54, Bron Clifford had lost his family, his ministry, his health, and his life. He would wind up leaving his wife and two Down syndrome children, and at 35, this once great preacher died from cirrhosis of the liver in a rundown motel at the edge of Amarillo. His last job was selling used cars in the panhandle of Texas. John Hege would say that he died unwept, unhonored, and unsung.

Some pastors in Amarillo actually took up a love offering, sent his body back east for a decent burial. 1945, three men come out. They’re doing awesome. Extraordinary grifts preaching the gospel to multitudes of thousands, and within 10 years, one remained. How does that happen? In the Christian life, again, it’s not how you start. It’s how you finish, and the reason is because they’re going to remember how you finish, because that’s the last thing they’ll see about you.

So that’s where we are today, and this chapter, Gideon’s going to show us that this once great leader, this once great judge, have problems. Remember, the title of the series is what? Broken Saviors. Consistently, Israel is in what is called a sin cycle. What do they do? They’re kind of going with God, then all of a sudden they decide, you know, we don’t want to do this anymore. This is kind of boring. We want to be like everybody else around us. We want to be like the world, the culture, and so we’ll just do what everybody else is doing, and all of a sudden they go off and they do their own deal. The Bible says in this book they were doing what was right in their own eyes. And so they get into this life of sin until all of a sudden they realize this is destroying us. And it’s allowing the people around us to destroy us. And then they cry out to God. And what does God do? He sends them a savior. He sends someone in there to take care of the situation. And they come back and then it’s what? Repeat, repeat. Again, like shampoo, you know, wash, rinse, repeat. I mean, that’s kind of what, this is just a sin cycle. And there’s seven of these sin cycles in this book of scripture.

And so now we’re with Gideon. Let me just kind of go back to what Jeremy’s preached on over the last couple of Sundays. Remember the angel of the Lord finds him. He’s hiding in a wine press. It’s not being used to be as a wine press should. He’s, they’re just kind of hiding. They’re hiding from the Midianites. Remember these are the guys and they’re, they’re just numerous. They’re just a large group of folks. But what they do is they hit and run. They come in, they take what you’ve got. If it’s time to harvest the fields, they came in, come in probably right after you harvest and take it all away. They take your, they don’t take your crops, they take your animals. They might even kill you, but they hit and run. They hit and run. And, and, and Israel is just in poverty. They’re scared to death of these guys. But God comes and he finds Gideon. He even looks at him and he says, “Oh, valiant warrior.” And I can see Gideon kind of going, “You talking to me?” And then God, he decides to be used by God. Remember that he goes, probably one of the greatest single battles in all scripture. I spent five years in the army. So I understand some things about, this is not how I would have fought a battle.

The Bible says that they’re battling a group of about 135,000 Midianites. 135,000. Just let that sink in for a minute. Gideon makes a call to about four of the tribes and about 32,000 guys show up. So they’re already down about four to one. But they got God and they figured they can do it. And God comes to Gideon and said, “You got too many guys.” And I can see Gideon going, “What do you mean too many guys?” “We got 32,000. They got 135,000.” “How’s that too many guys?” He said, “That’s too many.” “Here’s what I want you to do.” “I’ll just go and ask them, anybody that really doesn’t want to be here, anybody that’s kind of got some fear, or scared, y’all can go home.” And I can see Gideon just kind of going, “Not my guys, my guys volunteered.” They came, I got 32,000 brave guys. But he said, “I’ll ask them just because you want me to God.” What does he do? He asked them, “If y’all want to go home, if you really want to go home, go home.” The Bible said, “22,000 leave.” I want you to be a leader for just a second. 22,000, 32,000 leave. That leaves you 10 grand. Okay, 10,000 guys. Then God looks at him and says, “You still got too many.” I’m going, “We just lost 22,000.” Remember the story? Jeremy talked to it last week. He said, “What? I want you to go take them down to the river.” The guys that stick their head in the water, just not caring what’s around them, tell them they need to leave. But the guys that bring it up and are kind of watchful, looking around like a good military guy would, you keep those guys. Takes them down to the river. How many leave? The Bible says 9,700 leave. It leaves 300. He’s gone from 32,000 to 300. And then God uses, He just uses what? A jar, a lamp, and a yell, a horn, to fight these guys. And the Bible says that, and we find out in this chapter, that 120,000 of them die, killed at their own hand. So you got 15,000 left. And Gideon with his 300 guys in this chapter starts to pursue them. Because he’s sitting there going, “We’re going to get rid of our Midianite problem.” God didn’t tell him to do that, but he does that. He’s after them. They’ve killed the princes, but they haven’t killed the two kings. And so that’s kind of where we’re at.

But what we see in this passage at this point is that Gideon goes from being up here and acting like he needed to act as a man of God, to all of a sudden they see him start to finish way different. The question is, how do you want to finish? Now, how do we know that he did this? Well, we find that in this chapter. I want you to go to verses 16 and 17. And here’s what he did. He lost the ability to have compassion and mercy on his own people. In verses 16 and 17, it reads this, “So he took the elders of the city, and he took some thorns and bristles from the wilderness, and he disciplined the men of Succoth with them. And he also tore down the tower of Penuel and killed the men of the city.” Now, why would he do that? Well, we find out in some verses right before this that he’s again pursuing the kings in the last 15,000 of the 135,000, because he’s going to end this thing. But they’re tired. They’ve just watched with it, and they’re pursuing these guys. They’ve been on the road for a while, and they come up to this one city, and he comes to the leaders. They come out to see him, and he says, “Look, my guys are tired. Can you give them some bread and some water? Can you give them something to kind of refresh them?” And here’s what the guys, the leaders of the city says. Verse 6, “But the princes of Succoth answered Zebah and Zalmunna, these were the kings, now in your hands, and we should give bread to your army.” Basically, you haven’t really killed, you know, cut the head off the snake. Yes, you’ve won an incredible battle. Yes, we heard all the things that God did. Yes, but the main guys aren’t dead yet, so we’re not going to give you anything. And you’ve got to remember, these are Israelites that he’s talking to.

So he goes to the next city, and he tells them, Gideon replies, “Very well, when the Lord has handed Zebah over to me, I will tear your flesh with thorns and briars from the wilderness.” Then he goes to Penuel, and asks the same thing. And the men of Penuel say the same thing to him. And he tells those guys, “When I return, I will tear down this tower.” And here’s what he ends up doing. He finds the two kings, he brings them captive, he takes care of the 15,000 guys, but on the way back, he comes back to the city, and it says, “It’s time for me to have my little vengeance.” It’s interesting that the Bible says that vengeance is mine, says the Lord, isn’t it? And maybe he had a right. And yes, were these guys jerks? Absolutely. Should they have helped him? Absolutely. Now, let’s look on there, they’re probably scared. The Midianites have been after us for years, decades, and the problem is not resolved. There’s still a number of them remaining, and they might find out that we helped you and come back and still come back on us. So they decide not to help. Gideon goes in, and the Bible says he gets the thorns and the thistles, and he just, he literally just takes his skin right off their back. Then he goes to the city of Penuel, and he says, “Remember I told you, you got this big tower, and it helps you watch out, see if anybody’s coming. I’m going to tear that down.” And he not only tears it down, but he kills all the men in the city. Now, nowhere in scriptures has it said God told him to do that. Do you realize that? You can understand why he does it. You can understand what his purpose was, and when they turned him down, that they didn’t help him. But nowhere does it say God told him to do any of this. He kind of takes it on his own. Maybe he just thinks he’s leadership now.

And what I want to just say is this: How we treat each other, whether we like each other or not, the world is watching. See, here’s how you can find that you’re starting to go down the wrong path, especially as a Christian. When we don’t treat each other the way we ought to be treating each other, especially in the church. Does that make sense? I don’t just want to talk. I’m a senior now, you know, and I don’t know, many times as seniors, we get this attitude of, you know, I can say whatever I want to say, whenever I want to say it, however I want to say it, at any time that I want to say it. I’ve earned that right. No, last time I checked in Scripture, we don’t have any right to become spiritual jerks. We don’t. We need to watch what we say to each other. We need to love each other in spite of each other.

The world is watching, and let me tell you what they do. They look at us, and we can tell when Christians aren’t going to go in the right direction, depending on how we treat each other, because the world says if you can’t get along there, what makes me want to come to that place? And Gideon wouldn’t even treat his own people the way they need. You want to take it out of the Midianites? Take it out of the Midianites. But how was he ever going to convert those folks in these two cities, his own people, like I said, even though they were jerks, if he has no mercy and compassion? I love what it says in Micah, you know, what does the Lord require of thee but to act justly, have mercy, to walk humbly with our God? I think Gideon had forgotten to do that at this point.

Not only had he lost compassion and mercy on his own people, he had lost perspective of who and what was important to the nation. Sam read at the beginning of our service that the nation of Israel comes to him after the battle and pretty much says this. In fact, I’ll read it to you. Rule over us, you as well as your sons and your grandsons, for you delivered us from the power of Midian. Rule over us. Now, he comes up with the right answer. He said, I will not rule over you. My son will not rule over you. The Lord will rule over you. Well, that sounds great. I don’t want to be king. Here’s what he’s saying in his heart. I don’t want to be king. I want to be treated like a king.

Now, how do we know that? Well, let’s look at verses 24 through 27. Then he said to them, let me make a request of you. Now, this is right after he tells them that he doesn’t want to be king. Everyone give me an earring from his plunder. Now, the enemy had gold earrings because they were Ishmaelites. They said, we agree to give them. So, they spread out a cloak and everyone threw an earring from his plunder on it. And the weight of the gold earrings he requested was formerly three pounds of gold, was 43 pounds of gold. In addition to the crescent ornaments and ear pendants, the purple garments of the kings of Midian and the chains on the necks and their camels. And Gideon made an ephod from all this and put it in Ophrah, his hometown. And then all Israelites prostituted themselves by worshiping it there and became a snare to Gideon and his household.

I don’t want to be your king. God’s got to be your king. But you know what? In the meantime, I want you to take all the plunder that you had. Now, Midianites were known for having wearing gold earrings. And so, they took the earrings. They were solid gold. And he said, I want those gold earrings. That’s what I want. And I want them to be given to me. And he ends up killing the kings. And even if they’re camels or crescents, which are a sign of royalty. And he takes even their purple robes, which are, again, a sign of royalty. So, he’s taken all this stuff saying, I don’t want to be king, but I want you to treat me like one. I deserve all this. And then what he does, he melts it down. Okay, 43 pounds. At today’s standard, that’s about a little over $3.5 million. Okay? He melts it down. And then he makes it into what the Bible says is an ephod.

Does everybody know what an ephod is? Okay? If you were the high priest, you are an ephod. If you ever see a picture of a high priest, they have like an apron that kind of runs from here all the way sometimes down to their knees or maybe mid-calf. On that, for the high priest, it would be, they would have 12 stones in it, each representing a different tribe of Israel. It was usually had, it was colorful. It was made to be a certain design. But it was an item that was used in religious services and worship. Well, he has a gold one made. And then he takes that and he takes it like a historical marker and he puts it in front of his own hometown.

Now, why would he do that? And what the nation ends up doing, listen to what it says, that all Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it there. And it became a snare to Gideon and his household. It’s like, you may forget a lot of things, but I don’t want you to forget me. If you head down Highway 61 and you’re heading toward Middleton Gardens, before you get there, there’ll be signs that’ll sit there, you know, revolutionary historical markers coming up, right? You’ll go on to Middleton Gardens and you’ll get there. And throughout it, you’ll see little markers telling you what happened at that place. This was a marker saying, it’s not about the Lord so much as it’s about me. I don’t want you to forget about me.

It’s interesting what the Israelites say to him when they want him to become king. They say, you, they said, rule over us. But if you go right up to the thing, they actually, you delivered us from the power of Middleton. Nobody says that God delivered us. He used you and 300 other guys, which is why God narrowed it down to 300. As our pastor said last week, it was all about the Lord getting the glory and the Lord getting the credit. But what Gideon does here is he sits there and he says, okay, I want to get someone that credit. Okay, I was the leader. God used me. I don’t want you to forget about me.

The problem is, is when it all becomes something about us, we forget about Him. Do we not? And so we wonder why, how do we get from here to here as a Christian? Well, one is how we treat each other. The other is all of a sudden, it’s all about me. He had lost perspective of what was important to the nation. It wasn’t that he was important. It was that God was important.

Ladies and gentlemen, I want to share something with you. We’re always wanting the right guy to be in the White House and the right guy to be on the courts or the right people to be our mayor. And it’s okay to want that. But ultimately, the only thing that’s going to change us and change what’s inside of us is the one who’s above the guy in the White House and the guy on the Supreme Court and the other ones. And when we always point to Him and not to how awesome everybody else is. Look, George Washington has had states named after him and cities named after him and monuments named after him. And a lot of folks have no idea who he is and what he was really about. They forget. The one thing we should never forget is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

He lost perspective of who was important. Here’s the last thing. He loses influence to guide the future of his people. Look how he finishes. Verses 33 to 35. And when Gideon died, the Israelites turned and prostituted themselves by worshiping the Baals and made Baal Beareth their God. The Israelites did not remember the Lord their God who had rescued them from the hand of the enemies around them. They did not show kindness to the house of Jerubbaal. That is Gideon for all the good that he had done for Israel.

Now he goes out. My stars, ladies and gentlemen. Look at what God had taken. God had taken an army of 135,000 and decimated them. God had raised them back up. God had even given them a leader. And this leader forgot how to treat his people. His leader said it was all about me. And now he had lost the influence. And if you look back in the chapter, you find out even when he gets with the kings, he actually looks at his youngest son and says, he asked him to kill the kings. And it’s a boy. I mean, he wasn’t even a good dad.

The Bible even talks about, he says, Gideon had 70 sons, his own offspring, because he had many wives. And I just want to share something with you. Whenever you see that in scripture, it’s not good. Whenever these guys have multiple wives, there’s issues and problems. I mean, look at David. Look at Solomon. Look at even Abraham. Not that these weren’t some great men, but they had flaws. Again, broken saviors. Thank you.

What it says here is the land had been at peace for 40 years during the days of Gideon. But it also says his concubine, he had a concubine in Shechem, also bore him a son and he named him Abimelech. And then the son of Gideon, son of Joash, died at a good old age and was buried in the tomb of his fathers in Ophrah of the Abiezrites. He has an illegitimate son who you’ll find about next week, another one of those broken guys in this book.

What kind of, I mean, it got to a point where he wasn’t even a good dad. And I want to tell you to all the dads out there, one day we will stand before the Lord, not moms, okay, not grandmamas, aunts, as dads, we will stand before the Lord and have to account on how we raise our family. Okay, guys, do you understand that? Al Smith is going to have to stand before the Lord on how he discipled his wife and how he took care of his daughter and how he took, the influence he had on his grandkids. I’m going to have to do that.

And I look at the influence he has on it. I mean, as soon as he dies, they prostrate themselves by worshiping the best. They were doing that when he was alive, worshiping that golden ephod. How do we do that? How do we get there? I mean, this thing became a trap and a snare to his family. They forget about the Lord. Everything is forgotten. I ask you, do you want to be that way? I mean, how do you want to be remembered? When they tell the stories of your life, what stories will they tell? Ladies and gentlemen, how are you going to finish? I mean, what are they going to, those that come behind us, what are they going to say about, you know, you, your family?

Here’s the deal. Will the Lord be more prominent in your kids’ and grandkids’ lives than even when they were in your life? Will they be close to the Lord because they watched you be close to the Lord? Do they study the Bible because you studied the Bible? Do they have an amazing prayer life because you have an amazing prayer life? Do they, will they serve the Lord because you served the Lord? How do you finish, folks? Now, if you go off the path, how do you get back on the path? That’s the point. I mean, this is something. And this is, this is a story that doesn’t end well, but I want your story not end well. I mean, to not be like this where it doesn’t end well. I want your story to be what God wants it to be. I want you to live a life of impact and influence.

So how does that happen? And let me just kind of close with this. It’s a couple, a couple of weeks ago, I’m watching television and there’s a, there’s a news show on and a guy by the name of Matthew West comes on the show. Matthew West is a contemporary Christian artist. Got some great songs out there. He’s written for a lot of people, but he’s on there. And in the thing, in the interview, he actually tells a story where he’s at a Christian kind of dad daughter camp. It’s in California. And he’s there with his daughter, Luella. He calls her Lulu. And he’s there with Lulu and they got an exercise that they’re supposed to do. And here’s how the exercise works. They’re going to go on a hike and they blindfold the daughters and they, they give them, they give the daughters Three instructions. Okay. Here’s the first one. Know that your dad will never leave you. He’s going to be by your side the whole exercise. You need to listen to the sound of His voice, and you can ask Him. Number three, you can ask Him anything. Okay. Those are three things. He’s not—he’s going to be there the whole time. You got to listen to the sound of His voice, and you can ask Him everything.

So each group’s got a counselor. So they’re going on the hike, and he’s kind of leading his daughter. He’s just kind of taking her around, and all of a sudden the counselor steps in after a certain point, and he says, “Okay, can’t touch her, can’t hold her hand.” So he can—he—he’s kind of navigating her by talking to her. “Okay, this is what you need to do.” And they go this, and—and—and they’re going through the—on the hike, and they’re on the trail. Then the counselor steps back in, and he says, “Okay, not only can you not touch her, you can’t tell her anything. You can’t talk to her.” Going, how she—he says, got to ask questions. And so she starts asking questions. He starts guiding her, and they’re starting to—all of a sudden starting to get off the track a little bit. And then all of a sudden the counselor steps in one more time. Here’s what he looks at him. He says, “Okay.” Except this time the counselor goes up to Lulu, and he—he whispers in her ear, “You’ve kind of gotten off track. Okay. Here’s what I’m going to do. I want you to listen to me, and I want you to follow me exactly where I tell you to go, and I’ll get you back to everybody.”

So Lulu starts listening to the counselor, and they start to get off track, and they start going in the wrong direction. Next thing you know, they’re in a ditch in front of a tree. Now, Dad, Matthew is right there. He’s right there with her, but he can’t say anything. And all he can hope is that she starts remembering those instructions. Can’t say anything. Can’t do anything. Can’t touch her. Can’t guide. Can’t do anything. She’s in this ditch by herself in front of this tree. And finally she—she all of a sudden hear her go, “Dad, are you there? Are you there? Dad, are you there?” And he goes, his tears are starting to come down his cheek. “Yeah, Lulu, I’m right here. Never left you. I’m right here.” “Daddy, can you get me out of here? Can you get me home? Can you get me to the right place?” “Honey, I’d love to do that.”

I don’t think there’s a big stretch to tell how that works with us spiritually, does it? If you find yourself at a place in your life where how you’re treating other people—whether within the church, within your family, but just how you’re treating other people—starts to go awry, and all of a sudden it’s not so much about the Lord. You know, I’ve done Experiencing God enough that I can tell you how things are going to go during—before we get to the finish line. Everybody starts off ready to go. We’re all at the top. You know, we’re all up here at the penthouse. We’re all—I mean, we’re making time in the morning to have our time with God. We’re setting aside time. We’re doing what—we’re going through the book. We’re memorizing the Scripture. By the time we get about halfway through, that time with God starts to diminish. Working in the book is not so important anymore. Memorize Scripture, you can forget that. All those things start to happen by the time we get to unit 10, 11, 12, maybe even before. And then maybe we find this—realize the whole purpose, the whole perspective is not so much about Him anymore. It’s about us. And we lose influence with other people because they’re not—they’re watching us, and they’re seeing us maybe talk the talk, but we sure don’t walk the walk.

Let me give those three things to you again. I want you to always understand, this is how you get back where God wants you to be. This is how you get back to finishing well. You understand this: God will never leave us. We should only listen to the sound of His voice, and we can ask Him anything. Does that make sense? You want to get back on track? You want to get back close to God? We have to realize He’s never moved. It’s like this. We’re this close, we’re using when we first get saved, but somehow at some point we start to do this. He’s never moved, and we’re doing this. He’s never moved. We’re here. And all He, He’s, He just wants to, He just wants to bring us back. Talking about Matthew West. He wrote a song, and it’s entitled, “My Story, Your Glory.” It goes like this: The story of me was a story of shame, wrong turn written on every page. So many parts that were so messed up, but I love the part where You showed up. Rewriting my past, rewriting my hurt, line by line, word by word. And now my story is living proof that there’s not a chapter, not a chapter that You can’t use. Now the story of me is a story of grace, fingerprints of mercy on every page. No more shame for the path I took. You set me free. Be an open book. If even my scars are part of the plan, take all of my heart, Lord. Here I am. My only cause till You call me home is knowing You more, making You known. All of me, all of You, let all I say and all I do point to the One who changed my life. And let me speak of the legacy I leave behind. Here’s the chorus: My story, Your glory, my pain, Your purpose, my mess, Your message, and all things I know You’re working. One life, one mission, one reason why I’m living. All for You, not for me. My story, Your glory.

Gideon had gotten to a point where it was all about his story, not His glory. We live our lives because God wants to use us. Whether you’re a guy hiding in a wine press or a guy that is 300 against 135,000, or as we come forward, it’ll be about guys named Samson and others. God will raise up people that we would never pick. That’s why they’re broken saviors. He says, “I’ll use you, and I’ll use you to be part of some amazing things, things you never thought you could do. It’ll be your story, but it’ll be My glory.”

Where are you this morning? Have you kind of gotten off track a little bit? Are you kind of, you’re on the path that He wants you, then all of a sudden the world just draws you away? It’s not about Him anymore. It’s more about you. Do you want to get back? Our pastor’s going to be up at the front in just a moment. If you want him to pray with you, that’d be great. If you want to come down to the stairs, the steps here, and get on your knees and pray, that’d be great. If you want to be right there in the pew where we’re at, you just say, “God, I have gotten off track. I got this going on in my life that has no part of me. I’m no part of You, but it’s all about me. And I want You to take me back.” If you want to do that this morning, this is what the invitation is all about. God’s inviting you to come back to Him. God’s inviting you to get back on track and back on the path that you need to be on. And God is inviting you if you’ve never made that decision. You’ve been out here all your whole life. You wouldn’t know the path if it was right next to you. He wants to bring you back and bring you to Him. That’s why He went to the cross. Maybe today is the time to say, “I want to get back on track with God. I want to live a life.” People look at it and say, “Christian life is so boring.” Folks, you get with Jesus. It’s a lot of things, but it’s not boring. It’s the most adventure you’ll ever have in your life. When you’re walking side by side through life with the Creator of the universe, it will change not only you, but everybody around you. Don’t you want to make an impact? It’s starting. How do you want to finish?

Let’s pray. Father, I want to finish strong. I have had my ups and downs. I’ve been on fire for You, and then I’ll lose it. I’ll be right on the right path. Next thing you know, I’m kind of going down somewhere where I don’t even know where I’m going. I want to get back to You. And there may be some other folks here doing the same thing. There might be folks here today that just say, “You know, Lord, I’m tired of walking down strange Paths all by myself, going through life, just wondering what’s next, and not having You to rely on, not having You to guide me and talk to me, to answer my questions. Well, I don’t want it to be about me. I want it to be about You.

Maybe there’s somebody today that needs to make that decision. Pastor’s going to be at the front. Maybe we just need him to pray with us just to say, you know, Pastor, would you pray for me? Maybe just in the silence of our own hearts and minds, we just right there in the pew as we sing to say, God, just get me where I need to be. I want to finish strong.