A New Beginning

Greg Laurie: God can do more with 300 committed people than he can with 10,000 half-hearted followers. The Lord wants people who are sold out to him, not those who hold out and back out.

Guest (Male): Pastor Greg Laurie makes it clear.

Greg Laurie: God is looking for men and women who will make a stand in their own homes. People who are willing to step out from the half-hearted fickle multitudes and be true followers of Jesus Christ. Would you be such a person?

Guest (Male): We live in an age of compromise, concession, and appeasement. The culture would have us look the other way in the face of wrongdoing. Just go along to get along. What's that they say? People who don't stand for something will fall for anything.

Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie urges us to be courageous in our walk with the Lord. We have the good news that leads to eternal life. We can't keep that hidden. It requires less fear and more faith.

Greg Laurie: All right, well let's grab our Bibles and turn to Judges chapter six. We're in our Jesus and You series, part two, and the title of this message is Jesus and the Person Who is Afraid.

You know, it's funny how expressions change with the passing of time, isn't it? Certain expressions are no longer with us unless you're really old. If you use the expression hunky-dory, you're pretty old. Or gee willikers, or that's malarkey, as you spray your hose at people near your house, you're probably an old person.

But it's funny how other expressions have somehow stood the test of time that go all the way back to the 50s, like cool. Cool has stayed with us. We were seeing cool back a long time ago and we still say cool today. And what's funny is hot and cool are interchangeable. They mean the same thing. That's cool. That's hot. It means it's good still.

But then there are some expressions that are not as popular, like in the 60s we used the word groovy. I don't know if I actually ever used that word groovy. Then rad, that was big in the 80s. That's rad, right? So if you're saying rad still, you're kind of an old young person. That's what's happening to you.

And so then we have newer expressions. That's killer. That's been around for a while. That's sick. And that's bad. Those all are good, by the way. So if it's killer, it's good. If it's bad, it's actually good. If it's sick, maybe it's really good.

So the whole script has been flipped. And then there are new ones that we use today. We'll say, you know, that's lit or you're goated or you're the GOAT. Someone said to me the other day, "You're goated, Greg." I said, "Wow, you mean like the greatest of all time?" "No, you're like an old goat." That's really? That's kind of offensive.

So everything's sort of flipped around, and things that seem like they're saying something is good actually might be bad and vice-versa. Well, the Bible talks about people doing that. In Isaiah 5, destruction is certain for those that say evil is good and good is evil, that say dark is light and light is dark, who say bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter. I feel like the script has been flipped and our culture is upside down right now.

We're celebrating things that are bad; we are criticizing things that are good. It's all turned around. What's wrong is now trending. And when culture is upside down, hearts are going to be anxious. As an example, 84 percent of Gen Z kids say they are anxious or stressed regularly.

One in three adults say they lose sleep over their finances. Nearly 70 percent of Americans say the future makes them afraid. And the top fears that people have today include failure, rejection, loneliness, global conflict, and their health. So I want to look at what Jesus has to say to the person who is afraid.

And that person might be you. You might come here to church today filled with fear or anxiety. And this is a story of a man who was afraid, and Jesus came to him. This man's name was Gideon. And Gideon was hiding from his enemy, the Midianites.

And in his encounter with Christ, his life was changed. He went from being fearful to being faithful, from hiding to fighting, from panic to purpose. So we're introduced to Gideon in Judges chapter six, starting in verse 11. Read along with me.

The angel of the Lord came and sat beneath the great tree at Ophrah. Gideon, the son of Joash, was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, "Mighty hero, the Lord is with you." Kind of a funny scene. Here's a guy hiding from his enemies, hoping they don't see him, and an angel shows up and says, "Mighty hero, the Lord is with you."

And then Gideon says, "Well, if the Lord is with us, why has all of this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn't they say the Lord brought us out of Egypt? And now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites."

And the Lord said to him, "Go with the strength you have to rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you." "But Lord," Gideon replied, "how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am least in my entire family." Another translation put it this way: "I'm the runt of the litter."

But that's okay because God seems to go out of his way to use unexpected people to do unexpected things. God loves to do the extraordinary through the ordinary. Now it's time to go to battle against the Midianites. He manages to rally 32,000 men. That's pretty good.

But the problem is the Midianites had 135,000 men. So he's thinking about how he's going to attack and what he's going to do, and the Lord has another test for him. Let's look at it. Judges seven, verse two.

The Lord said to Gideon, "You have too many warriors with you. If I let all of you fight the Midianites, the Israelites will boast that they did it in their own strength. Therefore, tell the people whoever is timid or afraid, leave this mountain and go home." And 22,000 went home, and only 10,000 were remaining who were willing to fight.

Wow. Okay, go to your 32,000 men, Gideon. Say if you're fearful and afraid, go home. Okay, see you. 22,000 guys walk away. Why did God want the fearful people to go home? Because fear is contagious.

I titled this message Jesus and the Man Who is Afraid. And this is obviously for a woman as well, any person who is afraid. Young person, old person, any person. And maybe there's something frightening you right now.

Let me share some scriptures about fear. You might want to write these verses down. Here's a great one. David said, "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?" That's Psalm 27.

God promises in Isaiah 41:10, "Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; yes, I will help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." Proverbs 3:24, "You can sleep without fear; you need not be afraid of disaster or the plots of wicked men, for the Lord is with you. He protects you."

Why should you remember these? Because the next time you are afraid, you need to quote these verses to yourself. Something's scaring you, something's freaking you out. Remind yourself, "The Lord is my light and my salvation, of whom then shall I be afraid? The Lord is the strength of my life."

Or as scripture says in 2 Timothy, "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." Use the word of God. Gideon loses two-thirds of his army. Now what is he going to do? How's he going to handle this? Now the Lord's going to bring another test. The Lord says, "Okay, you still have too many men."

Wait, hold on. I have too many men? I only have 10,000. "Yeah, it's too many. I want you to do one more test." Okay. "So go down to this little spring of water, tell them, go ahead and drink some water." They were dehydrated, really thirsty.

So they went down to this spring, and the Lord says, "I want you to observe these men. And those men that go down to the water and just bury their face in the brook and drink without any concern of any enemy attack or ambush, I don't want you to take them into battle. We'll call them the lappers."

But then there's another group who get down by the brook and they are on one knee and they bring the water to their mouth. We'll call them the cuppers. He says those are the ones, because they're drinking, but they're watching; they're alert. Dump the lappers, take the cuppers. That's not technically in the Bible; I'm just summarizing it so you'll remember.

So what is God looking for? He's looking for people that are aware, who are alert. Okay, now here's the battle plan. So he ends up now with 300 men. 300 men! He had 32,000, now he has 300.

Okay, here's the plan. Okay, Lord, what is it? "Okay, you're going to take a torch, fire, and then you're going to take a trumpet. So light the torch, put a clay pot around it, and run down the hill and say, 'For the Lord and for Gideon!' smash the clay pot, and then blow your trumpet."

"Yeah, okay. Where do the swords come in?" "No swords." "Shields?" "No. Just run down the hill, crack your little pot, blow your little trumpet, and yell 'For the Lord and for Gideon!' That's the plan." Okay.

And as you know, the Bible doesn't say all the Israelites were murdered that day. What happens is the Israelites obeyed God. They run down the hill, do the craziest thing you've ever heard. It's about as crazy as marching around Jericho, maybe a little crazier.

And the Midianites see these flames and they hear these trumpets. They think they're being attacked from all sides. They get disoriented, start attacking each other, and they kill themselves. And by the time the Israelites arrive, all of their enemies are dead. So God got the glory for that.

This is crazy. This would be like a Little League team beating the LA Dodgers. How does something like that even happen? Well, God did it.

Guest (Male): Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment.

Guest (Female): We're so moved to hear from listeners that join us from all over the world, from every background, every profession, every age, and in every circumstance of life.

Guest (Female): Hi, Pastor Greg. I want to thank you for leading me to Jesus in 1974 as an 18-year-old girl. My big sister had given her heart to Christ and dragged me to Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California to the youth service, where a young you said, "Leave your pride in your seat and come to Jesus." Praise God I did. Thank you, Pastor Greg.

Guest (Male): How have these studies in God's word touched your life? If you have a story to share, why not call us and let us know? Call 1-866-871-1144. That's 866-871-1144.

Greg Laurie: You're in a battle. If you like it or not, you're in a spiritual battle. And the only choice you have is: are you going to fight or are you going to lose? Are you going to gain ground or are you going to lose ground? "Well, I'm like a pacifist, okay?" Okay, cool, but you're going to die, all right? So you better put on the armor of God.

Ephesians 6 says we're not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world, against wicked spirits in the heavenly realms. Now I talked about angels. Angels are powerful, supernatural beings created by God.

But there are also fallen angels when Satan, who was once a high-ranking angel also known as Lucifer, rebelled against God. He led an angelic rebellion and took one-third of the angels with him. Those angels are now fallen angels, also known as demons. And they're actively working in the world today.

So we fight a spiritual battle. And to fight a spiritual battle, you need spiritual armor. Ephesians 6 says you need to put on the helmet of salvation to protect your mind. You need to put on the breastplate of righteousness. You need to have your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. And most importantly, you need the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

And this battle rages on every day, and it's not easy because as Christians, we're going to be misrepresented. We're going to be attacked. We're going to be criticized. We're going to be slandered. We possibly could even be killed.

You say, "Well Greg, you've kind of talked me out of wanting to be a Christian." Well, I hope not, because the Christian faith is not only worth living for, it's worth dying for. It really is.

"Greg, could you do a message instead on how to be successful in life and how to have perfect health and wealth?" Yeah, sorry. I'm just telling you what the Bible says. But here's the deal. We need to put our armor on and realize we're in a battle and trust the Lord.

Why did the Lord purge this army? Because he didn't want any half-hearted people. And the problem is there's a lot of half-hearted people in the church today. And what's half-hearted? It's kind of like, yeah, I'm kind of in, I'm kind of out.

I'll go to church this Sunday, maybe I won't next Sunday. Maybe I won't for a whole month, then I'll come back. Just half-hearted. I'll read the Bible, maybe I won't read the Bible. I'll obey God here, maybe I won't obey God here. I'll do this, I won't do that.

And you just sort of go through life doing it without a complete commitment. And God is looking for people that are totally committed. God can do more with 300 committed people than he can with 10,000 half-hearted followers.

Which one are you? Are you a half-hearted person or are you a committed believer? English evangelist John Wesley once said, and I quote, "Give me 100 men who love God with all of their hearts and fear nothing but sin, and I will move the world."

There's more than 100 here. If I could find 100 men, 100 women, 200 in total, maybe 150 of each, we could see our whole county, our state, our nation changed, who love God with all of their hearts and fear nothing but sin.

I started my message by pointing out that things are upside down in our culture. And there's a passage in the book of Acts describing Paul and Silas. And wherever they went, there was either a revival or a riot.

And there was a criticism made of them when it says, "Paul and Silas have turned the rest of the world upside down, and now they're here disturbing our city." Lord, give us more disturbances like that. They've already turned the world upside down, now they're disturbing us.

Oh yes, because our world is upside down. We need to turn it right side up. That's what Paul and Silas did; that's what we need to do as well. God is looking for men and women who will blow the trumpet, so to speak.

Men and women that will make a stand in their own homes. People who are willing to step out from the half-hearted fickle multitudes and be true followers of Jesus Christ. Would you be such a person? Because if you will, God will use you to change your world.

Because God can turn zeros into heroes. He can turn fear into faith. He can turn hiding into fighting, and he can turn panic into purpose. So let me close now and shift gears a little bit. When I was a brand new Christian, I remember everything was so new to me. In fact, it was so new to me, it was sort of alien to me.

And let me explain. I came from an alcoholic home; my mom was married and divorced seven times. And I never was told I was loved. I was never hugged. And so I go to church, Calvary Chapel, experiencing the Jesus movement, and there's all these people. "I love you, brother." "Praise the Lord." And it was a little too much for me.

It was. Why? Because I was a broken person. I was a person who'd kind of been chewed up and spit out. And I was very cynical and I was very hard. I developed these skills, if you want to call them that, to survive. And now I come into this environment of real Christianity.

And I remember I was invited over to a house where a bunch of Christians were gathering and they're eating and singing and praying and quoting scriptures. And I'm like, I don't know if I can do this. I knew it was right. I wanted to do it, but I thought I don't know if this is going to work for me.

I'm just too cynical about these things. And literally, I was thinking of walking out the door. I like it; it's good, but I don't know if I'm going to be the best Christian out there. I'm not the Christian type. They need to find someone else.

And I was thinking of walking out the door, and I remember I saw a sign over the doorway in the kitchen. And it was a statement of Jesus that said, "Be not afraid, only believe." And that really spoke to me. I thought, wow, that's it.

Because I have all these questions. "If you could answer this question or that question." Be not afraid, only believe. And I made a choice to believe, and I didn't walk out that door. And that was the best decision I ever made next to coming to Christ.

You have questions. You say if you could answer this question, preacher, I would become a Christian. Would you? I suggest to you that if you become a follower of Jesus, most of your questions will be answered. Maybe not all of them, but most of them will be.

But you must believe with as much faith as you can muster. Just believe and say, "All right, I'm taking this step forward. I'm going to do this. Now I'm going to take the next step forward." And that's what we all need to do.

God came to Gideon in a way he could understand, and God will come to you in the same way, wherever you are in life. Maybe you're at the beginning of life and you're young and you're looking forward. Maybe you're at the middle of life.

Maybe you're at towards the end of life and you're looking back. But Jesus is with you wherever you are, and he's ready to enter your world and change your life. Don't be afraid, only believe. Jesus Christ is the son of God.

He came to this earth on a rescue operation for you. He died on the cross for your sin. He rose again from the dead three days later. And he is alive, standing at the door of your life and knocking.

And he says if you'll hear his voice and open the door, he will come in. If you want him to come into your life, that can happen for you right now. Let's pray.

Now Father, we pray for any person who is hearing this maybe for the first time, maybe they've heard it before. But they need to believe; they need to come to you; they need to receive your forgiveness. Help them to do that, I pray.

That your Holy Spirit will convict them and convince them of their need for Jesus and draw them to yourself now. Now while our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed and we're praying.

If you want Jesus Christ to come into your life, if you want him to forgive you of your sin, if you're ready to believe in him, pray this out loud after me. Pray this now.

Lord Jesus, I know that I'm a sinner, but I know that you're the savior who died on the cross for my sin. I turn from my sin now and I choose to follow you from this moment forward. Thank you for hearing this prayer; thank you for answering this prayer. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.

Guest (Male): An important prayer from Pastor Greg Laurie today here on A New Beginning. It's the most important prayer you can pray. And if you've just prayed that prayer and you've accepted Jesus as your savior, let us welcome you into the family of God.

And to help you as you begin to live your life as a new believer, we'd like to send you Pastor Greg's New Believer's Bible. Your walk with the Lord deserves a strong start, and this resource will help you build a strong foundation of faith.

It'll answer the questions you may have, and has a whole array of study helps for new believers. We'll send it free of charge. Just ask for the New Believer's Bible when you call 1-800-821-3300. That's 1-800-821-3300. Or just go online to harvest.org and click the words Know God.

And then let us take a moment to thank you for praying for this ministry and for supporting it through your generous donation. It's an investment in kingdom business, isn't it right, Pastor Greg?

Greg Laurie: Yeah, it's really true, Dave. And I believe it's so important because you know the gospel saves lives; it saves eternal lives. Because when a person believes in Jesus according to scripture, they pass from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to the power of God.

And then of course that changes the course of their future. That impacts their children and their children's children. The gospel changes everything. And thousands and thousands of people respond every single year, thanks to the Lord, also thanks to you for your investment in this ministry enabling us to reach people wherever they are. So if this is something you care about, I encourage you to make a financial investment in A New Beginning and Harvest Ministries.

Guest (Male): Yeah, that's right. And we really do appreciate your support. Thanks for partnering with us today. It can make a real difference, not just for today or this week, but for eternity. So get in touch with your support today by calling 1-800-821-3300. That's 1-800-821-3300. Or go online to harvest.org.

Well, next time as Pastor Greg continues his series called Jesus and You, we'll see where we can find Jesus in the memorable story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Join us here on A New Beginning with pastor and Bible teacher Greg Laurie.