Have I Not Sent You?

Have I Not Sent You?

Text: Judges 6:11–24 Series: Sending Sunday Date: August 9, 2026 Speaker: Ed Rangel Location: Waupaca Church of Christ Bible Version: NASB 1995 Sermon Type: Expository

Thesis

God sends ordinary people beyond what they believe they can do, and His presence—not their adequacy—is the strength by which they obey.

Hook

• God’s call often comes before we feel ready. Sometimes it comes precisely when our confidence is lowest, our resources are thinnest, and the people who usually steady us are no longer close enough to lean on.

• We experience this in times of transition:

  • You leave home for college.

  • You begin another school year.

  • A gospel opportunity moves you into unfamiliar territory.

  • The familiar people, routines, and relationships that made you feel secure are no longer beside you in the same way.

• That is when the question begins to rise: Am I really capable of doing what God has put before me?

• Gideon understood that question. When God called him, Gideon was not standing confidently on a battlefield. He was hiding in a winepress, trying to preserve a little wheat from Israel’s enemies. He felt weak, overlooked, and completely unequal to the assignment.

• God did not tell Gideon to believe in himself. He gave him something far stronger than self-confidence:

  • A divine commission: “Have I not sent you?”

  • A divine promise: “Surely I will be with you.”

• Gideon’s courage would not come from discovering that he was more capable than he thought. It would come from discovering that the God who sent him would also go with him.

Introduction

To understand Gideon’s calling, we need to know where Judges fits in the Old Testament story.

1. Judges takes place after the exodus and the conquest, but before Israel had a king. God had rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt, brought them through the wilderness, and given them the land of Canaan under Joshua. After Joshua’s generation died, however, Israel repeatedly turned away from the LORD and adopted the worship practices of the surrounding nations.

2. The book follows a recurring spiritual cycle. Israel rebels against God, God allows an enemy to oppress them, the people cry out, and God raises up a judge—a deliverer—to rescue them. Afterward, the land experiences rest, but the next generation eventually falls into rebellion again. Gideon’s story begins during one of these cycles.

3. Immediately before Gideon, God had delivered Israel through Deborah and Barak. Their victory brought forty years of rest to the land. But Judges 6 begins with the tragic words, “The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD.” Once again, peace was followed by spiritual compromise.

4. The LORD therefore gave Israel into the hand of Midian for seven years. The Midianites and their allies did not simply occupy Israel’s towns. Each year, they swept into the land around harvesttime, destroyed the crops, took the livestock, and left the people with almost nothing to eat. Their raids were so overwhelming that many Israelites abandoned their homes and hid in caves and mountain strongholds (Judges 6:1–6).

5. When Israel cried out, God first sent a prophet rather than a soldier. The prophet reminded them that the LORD had delivered them from Egypt, given them the land, and commanded them not to fear the gods of the Amorites. Israel’s deepest problem was not Midian’s strength but Israel’s refusal to obey God’s voice (Judges 6:7–10).

6. Only then did God call Gideon. The angel of the LORD found him beating out wheat in a winepress, hiding the little food he had from Midian. In that fearful and humiliating setting, God called Gideon to deliver Israel.

Gideon looked at himself and saw weakness: an insignificant clan, an unimpressive family, and the least-qualified man in the household. God looked at Gideon and said, in effect, You are the one I am sending, and I will be with you.

The story of Gideon shows us what makes an inadequate servant able to obey: not natural strength, impressive credentials, or unshakable confidence, but the presence of the God who sends him.

I. God Found Gideon Hiding from the Enemy (Judges 6:11–13)

A. Gideon’s circumstances displayed fear, not strength.

1. “Then the angel of the LORD came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order to save it from the Midianites” (Judges 6:11).
   1. Wheat was normally threshed where the wind could carry away the chaff. Gideon was working in a wine press so Midian would not take what little he had.
   2. Israel was living in the land God had given them, but they were hiding from men who kept coming to strip it bare.
2. The angel of the LORD addressed him: “The LORD is with you, O valiant warrior” (Judges 6:12).
   1. Nothing Gideon had done in the scene looked valiant.
   2. God addressed Gideon in light of the work He was about to give him, not merely the fear that presently confined him.
3. Fear may describe where a person is when God calls, but it does not have the right to decide whether that person will obey.
   1. A new campus can make a Christian feel small.
   2. A classroom, workplace, or unfamiliar town can make silence feel safer than faithfulness.
   3. God has never required His people to wait until obedience feels safe.

B. Gideon saw Israel’s trouble but had not yet understood its cause.

4. Gideon answered, “O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us?” (Judges 6:13).
   1. He had heard what the fathers said about the exodus: “Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?”
   2. He could not reconcile those mighty works with the misery Israel was presently enduring.
5. Gideon concluded, “But now the LORD has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian” (Judges 6:13).
   1. The LORD had given Israel into Midian’s hand, but He had not done it without cause.
   2. The prophet had just delivered God’s charge: “But you have not obeyed Me” (Judges 6:10).
6. Gideon was right to remember God’s works, but wrong to examine God while leaving Israel’s disobedience out of the question.
   1. Pain can make us ask where God is when the harder question is whether we have listened to Him.
   2. Last week we asked who gets the last word. Israel’s trouble began when the gods around them received the answer.

II. God’s Command Was Greater Than Gideon’s Estimate of Himself (Judges 6:14–16)

A. God sent the man who felt too small.

1. “The LORD looked at him and said, ‘Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?’” (Judges 6:14).
   1. Gideon was not volunteering for a cause he had designed.
   2. The command came from the LORD, and the authority of the One who sent him gave Gideon reason to go.
2. Gideon answered by naming everything that appeared to disqualify him: “O Lord, how shall I deliver Israel?” (Judges 6:15).
   1. His family was the least in Manasseh.
   2. He was the youngest in his father’s house.
   3. He measured the assignment against his family’s standing and his own place within it, and the numbers did not work.
3. God did not tell Gideon that his estimate was secretly wrong and that he had always possessed everything he needed.
   1. The passage is not a lesson in discovering hidden greatness.
   2. God gave him a command that rested on divine authority: “Have I not sent you?”

B. God’s presence answered Gideon’s inadequacy.

4. “But the LORD said to him, ‘Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man’” (Judges 6:16).
   1. Gideon said, “I am the least.” God said, “I will be with you.”
   2. The answer to Gideon’s weakness was not greater confidence in Gideon. It was confidence in the God who would accompany him.
5. That same pattern appears in the commission Christ gave His apostles.
   1. Jesus said, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:18–19).
   2. He closed with the promise, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
   3. Christ’s command to go stands between His authority and His presence.
6. Christians do not enter new places alone or on their own authority.
   1. Students, you do not need to enter college pretending that you have no fear, no questions, and no weaknesses.
   2. You do need to enter it knowing who sent you, whose word governs you, and who remains with you.
   3. Gem: God’s presence does not make obedience unnecessary; it makes obedience possible.

III. God Gave Gideon Peace Before He Gave Him Victory (Judges 6:17–24)

A. Gideon asked for assurance, and God patiently confirmed His word.

1. Gideon said, “If now I have found favor in Your sight, then show me a sign that it is You who speak with me” (Judges 6:17).
   1. He asked the messenger to remain while he prepared an offering.
   2. The angel answered, “I will remain until you return” (Judges 6:18).
2. Gideon brought the meat, unleavened bread, and broth as he had promised (Judges 6:19).
   1. At the angel’s direction, he placed the meat and bread on the rock and poured out the broth.
   2. When the angel touched the offering with the end of his staff, fire sprang from the rock and consumed it (Judges 6:20–21).
3. The sign did not eliminate every hard step that lay ahead.
   1. Gideon would still have to tear down his father’s altar to Baal.
   2. He would still have to gather Israel, face Midian, and learn to trust God with a reduced army.
   3. Assurance from God prepares a servant to obey; it does not remove the need for obedience.

B. The God Gideon feared gave him peace.

4. When the angel disappeared, Gideon understood whom he had encountered and cried, “Alas, O Lord GOD! For now I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face” (Judges 6:22).
   1. Gideon had feared Midian. Now he feared that he would die because he had seen the angel of the LORD.
   2. The voice of God answered both fears.
5. “The LORD said to him, ‘Peace to you, do not fear; you shall not die’” (Judges 6:23).
   1. Before Gideon entered the battle, God settled his standing before Him.
   2. The peace did not mean that Gideon’s road would be easy. It meant that the God who sent him was not his enemy.
6. Gideon built an altar and named it “The LORD is Peace” (Judges 6:24).
   1. The altar stood as a witness that the frightened man had received peace from God.
   2. Gideon was not being sent from the safety of his own strength. He was being sent from peace with the LORD.

Application

Some of us are about to go in different directions. College students will leave familiar homes and familiar faces. Local students and teachers will soon enter another school year. Families will travel. I will leave next week to preach the gospel elsewhere. The locations differ, but the calling does not: we belong to Christ wherever we go.

Do not measure faithfulness by whether you feel strong enough for everything ahead. Decide whose word will govern you before another voice demands your allegiance. Find a faithful congregation rather than waiting until spiritual isolation feels normal. Pray before the pressure comes. Open the Scriptures when no parent, preacher, or familiar Christian is in the room. Speak the truth when silence would be easier. You are not carrying the reputation of this congregation as though Christianity were a hometown identity. You bear the name of Christ.

The congregation also has work to do. Sending people is more than watching them leave. Pray for them by name. Contact them. Encourage them to worship faithfully. Ask about their souls, not only their classes, travels, and plans. The people who go and the people who remain still serve the same Lord.

Conclusion

1. God found Gideon hiding, aware of the enemy and uncertain about God.
2. God did not build Gideon’s courage with flattery. He gave him a command: “Have I not sent you?”
3. God did not answer Gideon’s weakness by praising his hidden ability. He promised, “Surely I will be with you.”
4. Wherever Christ places us, we go under His authority, sustained by His presence, and responsible to obey His word.

Invitation