I think that one of the greatest examples of the sufficiency of Christ is found in Judges 7 when Gideon goes into battle against the Midianites. This is Judges 7: 1-7
7 Early in the morning, Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon) and all his men camped at the spring of Harod. The camp of Midian was north of them in the valley near the hill of Moreh. 2 The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me.’ 3 Now announce to the army, ‘Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.’” So twenty-two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained.
4 But the Lord said to Gideon, “There are still too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will thin them out for you there. If I say, ‘This one shall go with you,’ he shall go; but if I say, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ he shall not go.”
5 So Gideon took the men down to the water. There the Lord told him, “Separate those who lap the water with their tongues as a dog laps from those who kneel down to drink.” 6 Three hundred of them drank from cupped hands, lapping like dogs. All the rest got down on their knees to drink.
7 The Lord said to Gideon, “With the three hundred men that lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands. Let all the others go home.”
Imagine being Gideon for a moment. You have been called in the midst of your weakness to lead Israel against the Midian oppressors and in response you have amassed a large army to free your people. You are likely filled with fear and anticipation as the battle approaches, battling between the trust you want to have in the One who called you and the doubt that you have in your own ability to overcome what is in front of you. In this moment, some reassurance would be great. Before the big moment arrives, God tells you that you have “too many men.” That seems hard to believe given the years of suffering and the brutality that your people have suffered at the hand of the Midianites. Too many men sounds like a good thing. It increases your chances for victory and offers hope to those going into battle. It really seems impossible to have “too many men” given the circumstances and yet that is exactly what God tells Gideon.
The results are incredible. God takes an army of over 32,000 men prepared for battle and reduces them to a group of 300 men. This is hardly an army. This is just a large mob but this is what God intends. Now the promise that the Angel of the Lord made to Gideon in chapter 6 (16) saying, “I will be with you, and we will strike down all the Midianites…” is about to come to fruition. You will need to read the rest of Judges chapter 7 to see how the battle unfolds but once again, Christ is up to the task that he has called Gideon to.
The question I want to consider this morning is “why”. Why did God chose to reduce Gideon’s army to a mere 300 men when over 32,000 had responded to go into battle? We have been talking about the sufficiency of Christ all week and now we see the culmination of this in Gideon’s life. Now that Gideon’s army has been reduced to a fraction of the original group, it is clear that the results will be determined by something other than himself, that his call with be fulfilled in the person of Christ. When the battle was over and the victory was won, it would be clear that God had provided and that Christ was in fact sufficient.
I believe that we often times experience a similar reality in our own lives. It is very easy in a culture of surplus to apply credit to anyone other than Christ for the victories that we experience in life. As a matter of fact, the fact that Christ is sufficient can easily be lost on us because we live with dependence on so many other sources other than Christ. There are times in life that we experience a season of “reduction” similar to what Gideon experienced. Perhaps it is a loss of a job, or a relationship that deteriorates or our health or any other number of things that we have come to count on but in one way or another, our army is reduced. Without a doubt, this is often times painful, sometimes embarrassing and never welcomed but in the midst of the reduction, we experience Christ. It is when we lose our ability to count on everything else that we discover that the victory is ultimately God’s to begin with and that Christ is sufficient. There is no better place to be.
Pastor Sterling Moore
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