Mighty While Hiding: The Witness Our Neighbors Can See

The unused invite is still facedown under the mat. Last month this church printed mighty man of valor on the mission board after a neighbor named a hiding this porch already finished explaining: a visit nobody scheduled, a meal the street already knew was owed, a named household this sanctuary already called sent.

One hallway said we will go when we feel ready. The sidewalk received that sentence as if it were the only public news the block is allowed to keep.

A kid on that sidewalk is deciding whether this church is a people who let a God-given name become visible where a neighbor can see it, or a people who keep the Name in the sanctuary and let the street hear only how the wheat stayed in the press.

This is a sermon about the witness our neighbors can already see. If you preach it as a map of anyone's private insecurity program, you will lie. If you preach it as Gideon in Ophrah, wheat in a wine press, Yahweh's angel speaking mighty before the man felt capable, you give this church a God who names people by his purpose, and a people who cannot treat a printed calling sentence as the witness the block can already name.

Text

Hear the calling as Holy Scripture tells it, from the World English Bible: "Yahweh’s angel came and sat under the oak which was in Ophrah, that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite.

His son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press, to hide it from the Midianites. Yahweh’s angel appeared to him, and said to him, “Yahweh is with you, you mighty man of valor!” Gideon said to him, “Oh, my lord, if Yahweh is with us, why then has all this happened to us? Where are all his wondrous works which our fathers told us of, saying, ‘Didn’t Yahweh bring us up from Egypt?’ But now Yahweh has cast us off, and delivered us into the hand of Midian.” Yahweh looked at him, and said, “Go in this your might, and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Haven’t I sent you?” He said to him, “O Lord, how shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is the poorest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”