Apart from Me You can do Nothing: The Story of Gideon
“There is no such thing as a great man of God, only weak, pitiful, faithless men and a great and merciful God.”
― Paul Washer
Dr. John Snyder is the pastor of Christ Church New Albany, director of Media Gratiae, and author of multiple multimedia Bible studies including Behold Your God: Rethinking God Biblically and Media Gratiae’s newest release: Living with the True God: Lessons from Judge.
Living with the True God: Lessons from Judges is a 7-week multimedia Bible study that that examines key passages and themes in the book of Judges and applies them to the modern Church. Living with the True God: Lessons from Judges is now available as a digital study on Media Gratiae Online ahead of its forthcoming material release!
In chapter 3 of Living with the True God: Lessons from Judges, Dr. John Snyder uses the story of Gideon to illustrate an important spiritual principle:
The Almighty is pleased to use weak people.
Gideon, the man God chooses to lead the armies of Israel, is an obedient man. In his obedience we see faith’s activity. On the bare word of God, he is willing to risk everything, including the lives of those around him…
We see the same principle displayed in God’s choice of an army. What kind of army would God handpick? Here is an example. God takes an already outnumbered army and reduces it to 10,000 men. Then God diminishes it again to a mere three hundred! In this moment God clearly preferred to use a weak army led by a weak leader.
Why? We find the answer in the passage itself:
The Lord said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, for Israel would become boastful, saying, ‘My own power has delivered me.’” (Judges 7:2)
The real issue was not Israel’s weakness or strength. Ultimately, there are no truly strong men and no truly strong armies; there is only Almighty God. Yet there are men who know their own weakness, and there are armies that feel insufficient for battle. God delights to use such humble people. These recognize who is really winning the battle and give glory to God alone. They understand that they have no right to disregard God’s commands (regardless of how unreasonable they may appear), and they obey.
Another weak man that God used was Paul, the apostle. He opens 2 Corinthians 3 by defending the legitimacy of his ministry as an apostle sent by God. He then adds the following explanation:
Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant.
(2 Corinthians 3:5–6)
Paul was inadequate for the task God gave him, but he acquired an adequacy from God for this service. We could describe Paul as a weakling whom God made strong for obedience. In later writings Paul directs other weaklings to find strength from the same source.
…Weakness characterized Gideon, Paul, and every believer before or since. Even so, by living upon the realities of God by faith, every believer receives all he or she needs to obey God in the present moment.
…Christian, it is the same pattern for you today. Remember the words of Jesus to His nearest followers:
“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. (John 15:4–5)
“Apart from Me you can do nothing.” I remember asking the man who led me to Christ what this meant. His answer was helpful: All you do, apart from dependence upon Christ, ends up being nothing. While the new covenant provides greater privileges than the old covenant, it does not make you an independently strong person. You will need to stay as close to the Vine as possible, allowing nothing to interrupt that daily, vital connection with Jesus. Without Him we can do nothing of eternal value; with Him, we bear much fruit.