Month: November 2021

It is always good to be thankful and express gratitude, but this is especially true with Thanksgiving coming up next week. Today, we’re going to look at gratitude from a different angle and we’ll start with our verse, which is from James 1:2-4:

Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

This phrasing is odd (why should we celebrate failures and tough times?), but James gets right to the point and explains his reasoning. Trials lead to perseverance, which leads to maturity & completeness. This maturity & completeness is then more useful to God, which is the goal.

Thankfulness is typically associated with something positive like good health, financial success, or receiving a gift. If we were to document our gratitude list, trials and difficulties wouldn’t be near the top for most of us.

But let’s look at it from the other side. Think about one of the most challenging times in your life. Maybe it was a death, a job loss, or a financial loss. Now think about some of the positive outcomes of that situation. Your initial thought might be that there were no positive outcomes but think about it and see if you can come up with anything. Maybe a job loss led you to a better job, or a mistake you made in a relationship led you to treat others with more kindness and respect. Or maybe a certain challenge you faced gave you more empathy and compassion so you could be better prepared to serve as the hands and feet of God.

Note that James did not say only be thankful for the “bad” things. His point is that we should be thankful for all things and not just those that appear positive on the surface.

Questions:

1. Does it seem odd to rejoice when you face trials and difficulties in life?
2. Are any of your trials close to the top of your gratitude list? If not, should they be?
3. If you are comfortable sharing with the group, what is an example of a trial or challenge you faced that turned out to be positive?
4. If you started viewing trials and failures as positive outcomes, would you be more or less likely to take risks? If more likely, what is a risk you might take?
5. Before taking a particular risk, how would you engage God in the process?

Last week, part of our discussion centered on where to find God moving in our lives and today we’ll talk about something we can do to reveal His presence.

Our lesson today covers the story of Gideon vs. the Midianites in chapters 6 and 7 of the book of Judges. But before we get into that message, remember that the Old Testament follows the same storyline over and over again:

1. God makes a promise to protect and prosper His people if they follow His instructions
2. The people fail to follow Him and fall into sin
3. God allows them to suffer challenging times
4. The people cry out to God for relief
5. God saves them, often by facilitating a huge military victory
6. The people are thankful and can live in peace & prosperity for some period
7. Then the people fail again and the cycle starts again at #2 above

As an example, the very last verse of Judges 5 says, “Then the land had peace forty years.” Then the very next sentence, which is the first verse of Judges 6 says “The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites.”

After seven years, we see that Gideon (in Judges 6:13) cries out to God and asks why He abandoned Israel. God tells Gideon that He is sending him to save Israel from Midian. This confused Gideon and he asked, “Pardon me, my lord, but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”

The Lord answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.” Even with God’s assurance, Gideon was still nervous since he only had 32,000 warriors to fight 120,000 Midianites. Then God said:

Even though the Midianites outnumbered the Israelites 4-1, God instructed Gideon to reduce the number of troops down to 300. Although he was nervous, Gideon obeyed and led his 300 soldiers into battle, winning a decisive victory over 120,000 Midianites. In giving them this victory, God showed He was in control. As a result, the Israelites lifted His name up and gave Him the glory.

So how should we apply this lesson to our lives in 2021? Some of you are already a step ahead and thinking about areas in which you need to cry out to God and ask for miraculous victories. Here are some questions to explore that idea further.

1. Who started the conversation that ultimately led to the decisive victory over the Midianites? Does this provide an example of how God wants us to engage Him?
2. Think about how Gideon first approached God in today’s story. Did it sound more like whining or like demonstrating faith in God? Or both?
3. If you knew you were guaranteed to succeed, what victories or accomplishments would you pursue? Have you approached God to help achieve any of these victories?
4. Why do you think God reduced Gideon’s army from 32,000 to 300 before the battle began?
5. How would you summarize the main points of today’s lesson?