Holy Spirit leadership, strength in weakness

     In the old days in Scotland, the Scottish Highlands was settled by clans. A clan was an extended family which shared the same surname. So you had the MacDonald clan, the Campbell clan, the Macpherson clan, the Grant clan and so on. And these clans all lived in a different part of the Highlands. When the clan was called to war- the way the clan chief called his men together to fight was by sending out a runner with the ‘fiery cross’. It was a piece of wood, or two pieces of wood, often slightly burnt and sometimes wrapped with cloth stained in blood- symbolising the urgency and potential for bloodshed in the forthcoming conflict. As the cross was delivered from hand to hand, each runner ran at full speed proclaiming aloud the place of meeting and the men of the clan would assemble into an army.

The call was absolute. There was no getting away from it, no matter what task you were doing. Everything was expected to be dropped for the sake of the clan. Those who chose to ignore the fiery cross were seen as traitors and cowards to their clan. 

Well ancient Israel was also a clannish society like the Scottish Highlands. The nation of Israel was split into 12 tribes and each tribe was made up of several clans. So Gideon, whose life we are reading about was part of the Abiezrite clan and the Abiezrites were one of the ten clans that made up the tribe of Manasseh. 

Now Gideon was not the clan chief. He was just an ordinary member of his clan. And he wasn’t a very bold or outstanding member of his clan- not in his own eyes anyway. He is living a quiet life in his father’s household. But suddenly he is given a very unexpected and rapid promotion to leader of all the clans of Israel. 

And God calls him to raise the clans, to mobilize the clans of Israel for war. And so he blows the trumpet and his own clan, the Abiezrites, gather to his side and then he sends out runners, just as they used to do in the Highlands and they went round the clans of Manassah and to the tribes of Ahsur, Zebulun and Naphtali, calling them to come together for battle.

Why did they respond to Gideon’s call to arms? Simply because God gave him favour.

But what gave Gideon the confidence and the wisdom to lead the great army that came to him? 

Leadership is a difficult and highly skilled calling. There is a delicate balance to be achieved between dictatorship on the one hand and democracy on the other, between a leader imposing his own will and surrendering to the wills of his followers. Leaders can be too strong, or too weak. Leaders often face resistance to change, they have to balance many responsibilities, they need vision and be good communicators. It takes wisdom and strength to be a leader.  

And here is Gideon who a few days ago was just working on his father’s farm and now he is leader of thousands of men. What gave him the ability, the confidence and wisdom to lead them all? He had done nothing like it before, this was a leadership challenge far beyond anything he had ever faced. How did he cope?

The clue is in the words of Verse 34. Which says: ‘Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon and he blew a trumpet, summoning the Abiezrites to follow him.’ 

The New Living Translation says the ‘Spirit of God clothed Gideon with power.’ The Holy Spirit came on Gideon like a garment. 

Gideon got a supernatural empowering from the Holy Spirit to lead the people. It looks like that empowering gave him wisdom to know what to do, and the confidence and courage to do it. He knew by the Spirit that the time had come to gather the people and the Spirit gave him the impulse to blow the trumpet, send out the messengers and gather the army.

He was a non-entity, not a clan chief, not a renowned leader, just a man chosen by God empowered by the Spirit of God to lead, qualified by the Holy Spirit to do the leadership job. 

You know the Holy Spirit gives people a leadership ability. The Bible tells us the Holy Spirit gave Jesus that ability. It says in Isaiah chapter 11, ‘the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him (Jesus), the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, and he will delight in the fear or the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears. But with righteousness, he will judge the needy.’

The Holy Spirit was on Jesus to give him the ability to make the right decisions. Jesus could see through a situation and he knew when people were pretending and were not being honest. He could see what a person really was. He could assess a situation with perfect accuracy- not because he was very intelligent, although no doubt he was, but because the Spirit of God was on him, giving him the ability to judge righteously. 

Jesus, the most influential leader of all time, received the understanding, and strength and wisdom to lead because the Spirit of God rested on him. 

The Holy Spirit empowers Jesus’ people to lead also. 

The church needs Holy Spirit empowered leadership and not leadership which is based on judging by what eyes see and what ears hear. Church leaders and Christian leaders in any situation really need the insight that the Holy Spirit alone gives. It means they will make much better decisions.

There was a moment in the life of Moses, when he was leading the 2 million strong people of Israel, when he complained to the Lord that the burden was too heavy. He couldn’t cope. And the Lord said to him in response- ‘ Bring to me 70 elders of the people .. and I will take the Spirit that is on you and put the Spirit on them. They will help you carry the burden.’

You see Moses could lead the people of Israel because the Holy Spirit was empowering him to do it. And the 70 helpers he was getting, also received the Holy Spirit on them in order to lead. Holy Spirit empowered leadership.

Near the end of Moses life he laid his hands on his successor Joshua. Deuteronomy 34:9 tell us that; ‘Joshua son of Nun was filled with the Spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid hands on him. So the Israelites listened to him and did what the Lord had commanded Moses.’

Joshua got the Holy Spirit which gave him both wisdom and authority in the eyes of the people. 

We cannot bypass the Holy Spirit – He is the one who makes us much more effective as leaders and actually as followers also! Often Christians don’t seek after the Holy Spirit and don’t desire to be clothed with his wisdom and power. And they try and live the Christian life in their own resources. 

Don’t do that, you and I need the Holy Spirit! Ask for him to fill you and keep filling you. 

Spirit empowered leadership will take the people in a direction that the human mind and logic could not have taken them. It will be a leadership that glorifies God, not man. Spirit empowered leadership will see opportunities that no human would have thought about. Spirit empowered leadership will know God’s timing and be able to synchronise with what the Lord is doing. Sprit empowered leadership is not always focused on getting large numbers of people. As we will see in this story, God doesn’t always want crowds. Spirit led and empowered leadership looks different to normal human leadership.  

After Charlotte’s baptism we will pray for her to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We want the river of the Holy Spirit to flow in her life, as Jesus promised, the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, of power and the fear of the Lord. 

So now within a few days, Gideon has gone from living a quiet farming life, to being general in charge of a large army. 

And although he has the Holy Spirit, Gideon was still human. And suddenly he gets scared again. Gideon is like us, his faith went up and down, he could be very believing and bold and then get nervous and doubting. And so he asked the Lord to give him a sign that God would really save Israel. And so he tests God. 

He says to God; ‘I will put a wool fleece on the ground. If tomorrow morning there is dew on the fleece, the fleece is wet with dew, but the ground around is dry, then I will take that as a sign from you that you will save Israel through me as you promised.’ Right enough the fleece was wet and the ground dry the next morning. 

But then Gideon started doubting again. And I reckon he thought something like; ‘maybe the ground had dried quicker in the sun than the fleece, that is why the fleece is wet and the ground dry.’ So he asked God for a greater miracle. ‘Please make the fleece dry and the ground wet tomorrow morning.’ 

He thinks he is in danger of angering God by his unbelief in asking for signs. But the Lord is patient and understanding. He knows Gideon is really trying and is genuinely struggling and the Lord is very gracious to Gideon, he gives him another sign. The fleece is dry the next morning while all the ground around is wet. 

God is not ashamed to stoop down and reassure us in our fears. (Would we, if we were thinking, call our three year old child ‘sissy’ or ‘chicken’ because she was afraid of a big neighbourhood dog?) He is patient with our weakness. God doesn’t mind bolstering our fragile faith, our wavering grip on his word.

Having said that, I don’t think we should make a habit of putting God to the test like Gideon did, the Bible tells us not to do that. But Gideon here is not acting in outright disbelief but is making a plea for strengthened faith. 

When God is allowed to be in charge of God’s people, or to put it another way, when God’s leaders are following God. Then God’s people can expect the unexpected. They can expect leadership that is at least sometimes unconventional.

God’s ways are not our ways – Isaiah reminds us- and so we can expect God to lead us along ways that we would not have imagined. Going through the Red Sea is a classic example of God’s unorthodox leadership. 

And we see this again with Gideon. In warfare, you want to maximise the size and strength of your army and concentrate all the force you can against the enemy. But God led Gideon to do something totally different.

He said to Gideon- ‘you have too many men for me to deliver Midian into your hands. In order that Israel might not boast against me, that her own strength has saved her, announce now to the people, anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead’ . So out of his 32000 men 22000 left the army and walked out. They were the scared ones.

But there was still too many men. So the Lord said, ‘go down to the water and separate the men who drink the water by lapping from those who scoop the water up by their hands.’ 9700 lapped the water. 300 scooped it. God said to Gideon- keep the 300 men, I will use them to give you victory. Send the rest home. 

And so Gideon ended up with an army of 300 men, 1 percent of his original force.

Why?

Well the Bible says in different places that mere numbers are no guarantee of success- it is the presence of the Lord that ensures victory and He is able to work through a handful of dedicated people. I remember the pastor of St Thomas church saying to me once that God often uses smaller churches to do more than the bigger ones. Which was a thought provoking comment. 

Because God didn’t want man to boast. He wanted the glory. If they had won the battle with 32,000, then they would have said ‘we did it’!

And that is the tendency of we humans. We take the glory to ourselves. We love to think ‘aren’t we great!’ We love to boast about our achievements. And so often or boasting is against God. Do you notice the Lord’s words; ‘in order that the Israelites may not boast against me, that her own strength has saved her.  

How often have we boasted against the Lord, saying ‘look what I did’, when really it was God who did it? 

Dale Ralph Davis writes- Because of the tendency of God’s people to glorify their own efforts, to trust in their proven methods, to credit their own contributions, to think well of their cleverness, the Lord frequently insists that his people be reduced to utter helplessness, so that they must recognize that their deliverance can only be chalked up to the Lord’s power and mercy. 

God wanted to show the children of Israel and the Midianites his goodness and power. He wanted to reveal his saving power and he didn’t want man to steal his glory. By God reducing the size of Israel’s armed forces to 300, then there was no doubt who was doing the work, who was doing the saving. God likes to move through weak people and in situations where people are weak, to demonstrate his goodness and power, so that he gets the glory.

You know God wants the glory, he wants to be honoured and praised and thanked by humankind. He wants to be seen for who he is and honoured and praised for it. This is not a matter of God being vain or insecure, its simply God wanting us to see what is real and true. He is infinitely worthy of honour and praise, he is infinitely praise worthy. And so that is why he likes to arrange things in a way that humans can’t get the credit for things. That we can’t boast against him. 

William M’Culloch was parish minister in the town of Cambuslang (near Glasgow) in about 1740. A scholarly pastor excelling in languages, especially Hebrew, he was nevertheless a boring preacher. His own son described him as ‘not a very ready speaker... not eloquent ... his manner [was] slow and cautious.’ In fact, he was called an ‘Ale-minister,’ which meant that, when he rose to speak, a number in the audience left for the local pub to drink some ale or beer. Yet God chose to use William M’Culloch’s ministry as the means of revival in Cambuslang. I wonder if God was pleased to use William M’Culloch in order to make it clear that the Cambuslang work could not be explained by eloquence or human dynamism but only by the Spirit of God. 

God doesn’t want us to boast. Proverbs 27:2 says ‘Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; someone else and not your own lips.’ 

Jeremiah 9:23-24 instructs, “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they understand and know me, that I am the LORD.”

So selfish boasting is wrong for a Christian. 

You know it’s wonderful what God does when we honour him rather than looking to honour ourselves. 

In the 1924 Olympics Britain had a runner from Scotland called Eric Liddell. Liddell was a student at Edinburgh University. Everyone was hopeful that Eric would win the Olympic gold in the 100m sprint. He was the clear favourite to win the 100m sprint and Britain had never won the 100m gold since the modern Olympics had started in 1896. 

But when the schedule for the Olympic qualifying heats was published, Liddell discovered that the 100m heat, qualifying race was being held on a Sunday. Liddell was a firm believer in Sunday being the Lord’s Day of rest and thus he refused to run. There was great pressure on him, but he wouldn’t compromise. Instead he ran in the 200 and the 400m- they were not his best events. He got bronze in the 200m. For the 400m he barely managed to qualify. Eric was considered a 100m sprinter and the 400 meter race was considered too long for him.  

As Eric was leaving his hotel room going to the race, his masseur handed him a slip of paper. On the paper was a simple note: ‘In the old Book it says, ‘He that honours me, I will honour.’ Wishing you the best of success always. It was a verse taken from 1 Samuel 2:30. 

Well Liddell ran the race of his life, outrunning the favourites and winning the gold medal and setting a new 400m world record of 47:6 seconds. 

God used Liddell’s weakest event to bring him, the Lord, the greatest glory. Liddell surrendered his strongest event the 100m but God honoured him in his weakest.  

Paul says ‘I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.’

God’s power is released when we are weak. Gideon found it and so did Eric Liddell. Because through it Christ gets the glory.

God wants to weaken us sometimes, so we rely on him more and so that he gets the glory. 

Right after the Olympic victory-  Eric Liddell spoke all over Scotland at various evangelistic meetings. Crowds flocked to hear the humble man who was bashful about his trophies but bold about his Saviour. But he surprised many when he announced that he was leaving his fame behind to follow his father’s footsteps and go as a missionary to China, his birthplace. He served in the coastal city of Tianjin.

Then the Second World War started and Eric was captured by the Japanese and taken to an internment camp. Some of the prisoners in the camp never even knew that the Eric they lived with every day was the famous Eric Liddell who had won the Olympic gold medal in Paris. He never spoke of himself but he always talked of his Lord and Master, Jesus Christ.

As the war continued, some of Eric’s closest friends gradually realized that something was wrong with him. His speech became slurred. He began having long and painful headaches. Eric, once a runner, became unsure of his step. The fastest man in the world was slowing down. 

Although never diagnosed, the belief today is that Eric Liddell had a brain tumour. One day, while talking with a young girl about the will of the Lord, Eric sank back with the word “surrender” on his lips. The word ‘surrender’ was the last word he spoke before he died.

He was buried in a simple grave in China only a few weeks before the war ended. A band of fellow prisoners sang his favourite hymn, “Be Still My Soul.”

Surrender. My friends Gideon was willing to surrender. He surrendered his will to God, his security, his safety, his strength, he surrendered to the Lord. He surrendered when God called him to face his fear and do the strange thing and reduce his army, he surrendered to the will of God. Even though he was scared, he kept on saying yes to the voice of God. He allowed God to make him weak, so that the Lord’s power could be demonstrated and the glory would go to God. Eric Liddell did the same. Are we willing to surrender to God’s agenda, and follow in their footsteps?