A Very Real Fear

I'm reading through the book of Judges. If this book was a movie it would have to be directed by Quentin Tarantino. It is bloody and brutal and at some points, a little difficult to read. And then Gideon comes along. The guy starts as a sneak, trying to hide food from the enemy. Then he goes to battle and wins. Not by his own doing, the army he was fighting got freaked out and massacred each other. Then he gets a little cocky and takes things into his own hands and wins. And the story starts to go sour.

"And Gideon made an ephod of [the spoils] and put it in his city, in Ophrah. And all Israel whored after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family." Judges 8.27

He forgot where his success came from and believed the hype in himself. I have a lot of friends that want to go into ministry and the fear for all of us is that we will succumb to success just like Gideon. That we will cause our people to whore themselves out to a variety of things. Evangelicals do a great job of spotting the big stuff. Abortion is evil, corrupted sexuality is ruining families. But I think that the biggest fight that pastors overlook is to disciple flocks and teach followers of Christ that we don't follow a moral teacher. We follow the Savior of humanity. Our morality is a response to, and overflow of what Christ has done in us. We must teach the death and resurrection of Christ as the redemption for our sins. The victory of Christ in his rising brings us to life. Without this, we are left with morality for the sake of morality. Not morality for the sake of proclaiming Christ as the King and reconciler of every broken thing. The Holy Spirit restores. We must proclaim to our people that this work was done by God, not our actions. If we don't, the danger becomes obeying rules under our own power and making an idol out of our behavior.

The story of Gideon ends like this, "As soon as Gideon died, the people of Israel turned again and whored after the Baals and made Baal-berith their god." Judges 8.33

What will our people do when we leave? Act nice to people, or find their hope in Christ alone and go forth proclaiming His name in all nations.