Gideon - A Work In Progress | Bayless Conley

If you haven't been with us, we've been on a series in the book of Judges.

It was a period of Israel's history before it was a monarchy.

And the pattern as we shared last week was pretty much the same just over and over and over.

They would become complacent, begin to practice idolatry.

It would give the upper hand to their enemies.

They would go into captivity, be subjugated by an enemy force and held under the heel of you know, a pagan nation for many, many years, and then finally they'd cry out to God, they'd repent.

God would raise up a judge who would rescue them militarily and then become their civil leader.

And those judges ruled.

They were the highest authority under God during that period.

But when the judge would die, the whole cycle would start over again.

We looked at Deborah last time.

She was the only woman to ever be in that position as a judge over Israel.

And we come to the very next chapter now, Judges chapter six, and we see the pattern starting all over again.

Judges six, I wanna read verses one through 10.

And by the way, this is about Gideon.

I've called it Gideon, a work in progress.

Remember, my wife and I were in North Carolina.

One time we went to the Billy Graham Library and his wife and his bodies were interned there in the prayer garden.

And on Ruth Graham's headstone, it kind of made me chuckle, it said, end of construction, thank you for your patience.

I thought, okay, clever girl.

But you know, we all are a work in progress.

I'm not who I was and I'm not who I'm going to be.

I plan to continue to grow and grow and be conformed to the image of Christ.

And Gideon was very much that work in progress, that person under construction.