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Good evening, everybody. Welcome
to Living Worry Community Church. How are you doing tonight? That's
awesome that you're awesome. It's great to have you here.
We are excited to be here because God is good, right? You know,
I like thinking about this because I would say probably most of
us would not even know each other if it weren't for Christ. You
ever sit and think about that for a minute? It's really true, right? And
what a great fellowship he has created by saving us one at a
time. Precious Lord, let's bow our
heads in our hearts and thank you for that. Father, we are grateful,
Lord, that you are so merciful to us and gracious, Lord God. Father, we just thank you for
another opportunity to get together here, to gather here, Lord, and
to be able to just celebrate you, to spend time singing songs
of praise to you as we prepare our hearts and allow an expression
of worship of you in song, Lord. We know that you created music.
It is amazing to us, as so many other things are to in this world
and your creation, Lord, that points us to you, Father. And
we wanna fix our eyes upon you this night and set our hearts
towards you, Lord, and incline ourselves and listen to you.
We just pray for an anointing upon Pastor Frank, Lord, as he
teaches your holy word tonight, Lord, and those teaching our
little ones, Father God. We just pray that your word would go
forth with boldness, authority, and that truth would transform
our lives. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. And we're for cleansing a a a a a a a a a a Oh I am so ♪ Glory to His name ♪ Thank You,
my heart, for the day of my life ♪ Glory to His name ♪ Up to the
skies, to the hills, all is calm ♪ As I pour salt at the Savior's
feet He comes into play and we make our plea. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. Oh we invite you holy spirit Oh Oh Oh Lift our voices in a chorus of
honor You the angel of grace We cannot keep silent Or else you'll drown out in our praise
We exalt You, O Lord We exalt You, O Lord. We exalt You, O
Lord. Let the heavens be filled with
the sound of our praises. Let the heavens be filled with
the sound of our praises. Let the heavens be filled. We exalt You, O Lord. We exalt You. Oh, we exalt You, O Lord. We exalt You, O Lord. We exalt You, O Lord. We are gathered in your presence,
Lord, to give you praise. We exalt you, O Lord. Thank you,
Father. A thousand stories of what they
think you're like. But I heard the tender whispers
of life in the dead of night. You tell me. That you're pleasing,
that I'm never alone. You're a good, good friend. It's
who you are. It's who you are. It's who you are. And I'm loved by you. It's who I am. It's who I am. Well, I've seen many searching
for answers far and wide. But I know we're all searching
for answers. Do you provide the choice? Do you know just what we need
before we say a word of goodbye? Still you are loved by me. Still I am. Still I am. Still I am. Still I am. Still I am. Still I am. Still I am. Still I am. Still I am. Still I am. Still
I am. You are perfect in all manner
of ways. He's so undeniable, I can hardly
speak. He's so unexplainable, I can
hardly think. As you call me, deeper still
as you love me. It's who you are. It's who you are. It's who you are. It's who I am. It's who I am. You are perfect in all of your
ways. You are perfect in all of your
ways. You are perfect in all of your
ways. You are perfect in all of your
ways. You're a good, good God. Two in one. Two in one. Two in one. I'm loved by You. Two I am. Two I am. Two I am. I want to worship You, Lord,
in You alone. Guys, sing with me. Ladies, echo. I will worship You, Lord, in
You alone. With all of my strength I will
seek you On a mighty day Time will follow I'll love you always I'm My eyes to your throne I will
trust you Lord, I will trust you alone Trust you alone, I
will give you all I have ♪ I long to war, I long to war
♪ ♪ I would be of that brave, I would ♪ ♪ Do all my worst,
do all my worst ♪ ♪ Do all my best, do all my best ♪ ♪ I long
to war, I long to war ♪ I'll give you all my worship. I'll give you all my praise. You alone I long to worship. You alone are worthy of my praise. You are my worship I give all
my praise You alone I long to worship You alone are worthy
of my praise Hey, welcome. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you, Lord God.
Just come into your presence tonight, Lord God, to praise
you, to sing about, Lord God, your love for us, your grace,
Lord God, your mercy, and your care for us. And Lord God, we
just pray, Lord God, just as we come to the word, usher us
into your presence in a deeper way. And Lord God, let us just
look upon, Lord God, your revealed word to us. You have a message
for us tonight. And Father God, let us receive
it. Let us, Lord God, allow it to be planted into our heart
of hearts and let it produce an abundance, Lord God, of fruit
in our lives. For in Jesus' name we pray this,
amen. Kids, you can go. God bless you,
you can be seated. I wanna just see if I'm hooked
up here. I'm okay? I'm not gonna fall out? OK. All right, if we can, can we get our screen up here?
How are you all doing? Good? What's happening, Mike? Take problems? Should I do some
ad-lib? Tell some jokes? Did you ever hear about the ambitious
cannibal? He was always trying to get ahead. Tito, where are
you? I need the drums. There was some cannibals and
they were talking and they were talking about They would capture
the missionaries and eat them. And the one cannibal said, I
don't like them, they're real tough. And he said, how are you
cooking them? He says, I boil them. And the
other cannibal said, no, no, what do those guys look like?
He said, well, they're short, they're fat, they have a little ball
spot in the middle and they wear brown robes. He goes, no, no,
no, you don't boil them, they're fryers. How about the one that
ate a clown? The other cannibal said, Would you like to steal the show
here tonight? Wanna come up here and preach? All right, so we're gonna talk,
we're gonna talk about when fear conquers faith. Obviously, we
wanna talk about when faith conquers fear, but we're gonna be looking
from Numbers chapter 13 tonight, and this is gonna be part one,
when fear conquers faith, and next week we're gonna look at
part two, and that's gonna be from the 14th chapter of Numbers.
So if you're studying with us, I'd encourage you to read chapter
14. So stand with me for the reading
of the word. We're gonna read just simply here, Numbers 13,
verses one and two to start. We're gonna go through the entire
chapter tonight. And it says, and then the Lord spoke to Moses
saying, send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving
to the children of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers,
you shall send a man, every one, a leader among them. Heavenly Father, I pray, Lord
God, this night that you'd open up again our hearts to your word.
Speak to our hearts, Lord God. You know, you want us, Lord God,
to have not a spirit of fear, but a spirit, Lord God, of courage,
a spirit, Lord God, of boldness, a spirit of love, a spirit of
self-control. I pray, Lord God, that again, as we study your
word, for your word is alive, it's living, it's more active
than a double-edged sword, that, Lord, you would be impressing
it upon our hearts tonight. In Jesus' name, amen. So what
you have here, we come to the 13th chapter of Numbers, God
promised the promised land, okay, to Israel. And in this text,
what you're gonna see is, so God calls Moses to select 12
leaders, one from each of the 12 tribes, and they are to go
in and spy out the land, come back and give a report, and then
Israel is to go in and conquer the promised land. What happens
is 10 of the spies are, essentially they're cowards and they bring
back a word and essentially it discourages the entire, you know,
essentially nation of Israel and like just a contagion. And that is what, you know, fear
is contagious. Remember COVID? Whole lot of
people not getting COVID around here. They're getting it in other
parts of the country. We haven't been getting it around here.
But you remember how contagious COVID was? Well, fear, I think
is more contagious than COVID. It literally poisoned the entire
generation. And instead of entering the promised
land, all but two died in the desert. And that's the effect
that fear can have on us as believers. It can keep us from entering
into the promises of God. So we're gonna look at, again,
fear tonight, and you're gonna look at it in this context, we're
gonna look again at how destructive it can be. And I wanna mention
this to you, fear has two sisters, okay? You know who they are?
Anxiety and worry. They all kinda go together. So
we're gonna look at, again, fear and her two sisters. So here's
something, this is a good definition. that we talk about. Now, let
me just, let me qualify this for a second. There are good
fears. The fear of the Lord. The fear
of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. The fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But the fear of the Lord is to have
an awe, is reverence of God, okay? It's not a fear that freezes
you and keeps you from being able to do what God has called
you to do. There also is a good, healthy
fear of true danger. If you're walking out of the
church tonight and you step out on the street on Madison Avenue
and a bus is racing up at 70 miles an hour, it's good that
you become afraid and you step back and not get hit by the bus.
So there is good fear. The fear I want to talk to you
about, again, is fear, again with this definition, false evidence
appearing real. It's negative fear, it's destructive
fear, it's harmful fear. So when it comes to, again, this
abnormal fear, the researchers tell us that 90 to 97 percent,
you want to learn this, 90 to 97 percent of the things we fear,
worry, or have anxiety about never happen to us. So I'm using
a wide, 90 to 97%, because depending on what study you look at, I
had a great study that I used a couple of months ago on a Sunday
morning from Ohio State, and it was 90%. 90% of the things that people were
afraid of never happened to them. So it's just, again, it's just
destructive fear, worry, and let me just say this, there are
so many things that you could be afraid of. I mean, there are
so many things in the world. I mean, right now, we're living
on a hot planet, if you haven't noticed that. And there are thousands
of things that you can focus on that will create fear, that
will create anxiety, that will create worry. And, I mean, all
you need to do is turn on the news. Just this morning, when
I wanted to check, woke up this morning, first thing, I'm laying
in bed. I flipped on, I just wanted to take a quick look at
what was going on, and you know what's going on in the banking
industry right now. I just want to take a real quick look at
the markets and Fox Business. And the first thing that the
reporter said was enough, right, just to, man, I just got hit
with this wave that could create fear. So here are the things,
this is 2020, the top 10 fears. Corrupt government officials.
I like that. People I love becoming seriously
ill. Russia using nuclear weapons. People I love dying. You know,
more people are afraid, they're more afraid of their loved ones
dying than themselves dying. The U.S. becoming involved in
another world war. Pollution of drinking water.
Not having enough money for the future. economic and financial
collapse, pollution of oceans, rivers, and lakes, and then the
10th, biological warfare. These were the top 10 from 2022.
Now, I'll tell you, I mean, you focus on those, you start thinking
about those, you can go through the whole day being obsessed
with those, you're going to have a lot of fear, you're going to
have a lot of anxiety, you're going to have a lot of worry. And, you know, there
is a point... I get a... It's an intelligence
report that I get in the morning. I pay for it. And it's put together
by people who like CIA, ex-CIA intelligence, people on the Mossad
and Israel intelligence, again, people from all over the world,
Russian, they're ex-Russian intelligence people that contribute to this.
And it just gives me a real quick and a quick read in about five
minutes, I can know what's going on in the world. I can know geopolitical,
then I can look at economics, some religious things. It's a good report. But you go
through the day, you have on the radio, you have on the television,
looking at the internet, you're just looking at these things
over and over and over again. It's just robbing you. It's robbing
you of your life. So fear, and truly negative fear,
has really bad effects on our lives. The first is the effects
on our body. Okay. Fear weakens the immune
system. And with all these, I mean, with,
you know, with COVID and now, you know, the flu virus and colds
and all these other things, the last thing you want to do is
be weakening your immune system in this current time. Fear causes
cardiovascular damage, gastrointestinal problems, ulcers, irritable bowel
syndrome, decreased fertility. And it leads to accelerated aging
and even premature death. So there's some good reasons
why, you know, we really shouldn't be living in this, you know,
again, imaginary artificial fear. And also on a psychological level,
fear, essentially, I'm going to get technical with you, the
amygdala, right part of the brain, the amygdala part of the brain,
and what it does is essentially fear. It causes parts of the
brain to become active and other parts of the brain to shut down.
And so when you're in a state of fear, you'll notice you become
very foggy. That is something we teach in
the martial arts. When somebody is being attacked and we try
to assimilate, I mean, you can't assimilate attack fully, but
some, you know, psychopath, sociopath attacks you, you're going to
find that you're going to have this very effect where your brain
immediately becomes foggy. And a lot of people don't know
how to respond. You see a lot of these attacks that you see
on the news, people being attacked. What do they do? They curl up
in a fetal position while the person beats the heck out of
them or stabs them. And that's because of the brain shutting
down. So when we're in a state of fear, this thing occurs where,
again, we become impaired. We can't think clearly. We go
into a fog. So you're making decisions. Listen,
I make a lot of important decisions every day. There are decisions
that are affecting the church. There are decisions that are
affecting my family. There are decisions that are
affecting our future. There are decisions that are affecting
people's lives. And if you're in a state of fear, you're in
a state of war and anxiety, you cannot make good sound decisions. So, again, it creates brain fog,
and really, again, it inhibits and limits our ability to think
right. And then on a spiritual level,
so you have the body, you have the mind, The spirit, you know,
and in our spiritual relationship with God, like Jesus, you know,
and you see this repeated over and over again, Matthew 8, 26,
he said to them, why are you fearful, O you of little faith? Then he arose and rebuked the
wind and the sea, and there was great calm. In the spiritual
life, essentially, fear hinders us from becoming the people that
God has called us to be. The negative emotions that manifest
from fear, we can't achieve, living that way, the goals that
God has given us. Fear, essentially, it plays havoc
with our belief system. And suddenly we come to a place
where we're not believing that God can do, you know, in us and
through us what God has said he can do. Fear essentially,
you know, it just creates all sorts of doubts, pessimism, negativity,
and it creates destructive habits. And the people who live, people
who live in, you know, fear and have anxiety, a lot of anxiety
and worry, They will turn to destructive things to alleviate
and medicate themselves. So turn to drugs, turn to alcohol,
turn to pornography. They will try to medicate themselves
to basically deal with the pain or the discomfort that they're
experiencing from the fear. Fear steals away our contentment.
When we're always afraid, again, we're living in this level of
negativity. So fear really interferes with
the abundant life that God has called us to. He said, I've come
that you would have life and have it more abundantly. Fear,
anxiety, worry, it just really disrupts that abundant life.
So it has a negative effect on us physically, on us psychologically,
as well as on us spiritually. Again, you can see why, again,
the Bible really speaks out against this abnormal, destructive fear. So, when we get into our text,
first thing, first point tonight. A gift to be taken. God said,
go and take the promised land. It is a gift that God has given
to the Israelites. The issue is that the land is
inhabited by the Canaanites, those three ugly dudes. You got
the Canaanites, you got the Amorites, you got the Perizzites, you got
the Ites in there. God says, it's yours. Go and
take it, right? I mean, you see it right here.
I am giving to the children of Israel, right, the land. And again, this is just the renewal
and the moment of entry that God promised to Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. I'll take you back to Abraham in Genesis chapter
15 verse 18 to 21, on that day the Lord made a covenant with
Abram and said to your descendants, I give this land. And you have
the description of the essentially boundaries, which is I think,
if you look at it, it's far more massive than what Israel inhabits
today. But again, notice it's inhabited by all of these different
tribes. The Rephaites, the Perizzites,
Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, Jebusites. But God says here,
he says, I give it to you but you gotta go take it. You gotta go and uproot the enemy.
You're gonna need to defeat them. You're gonna need to drive them
out. You're gonna need to fight the good fight, and you're gonna
need to defend the land. So the promised land is a typology
of what? I think I'll use this, it's a
typology of our relationship with Jesus. Jesus is our promised
land, ultimately in heaven. But it is essentially a picture,
again, there's a lot of typologies. The Ark of Noah is a typology
of Jesus. The tabernacle is a typology
of Jesus. The promised land is a typology of Jesus. Jesus is
the promised land. He is the gift of peace, of eternal
life, of joy, of salvation that God has given to us. John 3.16,
for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son
that whoever would believe in him would have eternal life.
So Jesus is a gift for us. Now you need to take it. Now you need to take it, you
need to enter into it, And you know what? You need to fight
for it and you need to defend it. It's a gift, but you need
to receive it. You need to wrap your life and
your heart around it. You need to follow him, right? You need to take up your cross.
You need to deny yourself. You need to defend the gift. There's a lot about fighting
the good fight. Well, salvation is free. It is
free. It's a free gift. The promised land was a gift.
But you have to go in and take it. You need to defend it. Ephesians
chapter six, the armor of God. Why do we need to put on the
helmet of salvation? Why didn't we need to put on
the breastplate of righteousness? Why do we need to put on the
belt of truth? the shoes of the gospel of peace. Why do we need
to take up the shield of faith? Why do we need to take up the
sword of the spirit? Because you need to fight and you need
to defend the promise that God has given you. Because the enemy's
gonna come and he's gonna attack you. He's gonna come and he's
gonna attack you. He's a thief, he's a murderer,
and he wants to take away what God has given you. And he is
tenacious. So, yes, it's a gift for us,
but we need to enter into the gift by faith, we need to receive
the gift, and we need to fight for the gift, we need to defend
the gift. And the passive Christianity, it doesn't work. And it's not what is really proclaimed
in the New Testament. It is an aggressive form of Christianity. Here is the gift, but now, again,
you need to take the gift. And this is what God is saying
to the Israelites. Here's the gift. It's the promised
land. It's the milk and honey land,
right? The landfill with milk and honey.
You gotta go and take it. Second, 10 cowards and two heroes. Every battle has heroes and every
battle has cowards. You have two heroes, you have
10 cowards. Don't look at your Bible, look
up at me. I know I should never tell you that, but I'm telling
you right now. Is there anyone here who could tell me one name
of one of the 10 cowards? Mike, you're almost gonna blow
me away there. He raised his hand and he said, oh no. Could
you name one? Can you name the two heroes? Right? Caleb and Joshua. You can't name the 10 cowards,
right? So you go through verse three
through 16, you come down to verse six, there's Caleb, the
son of Jephunneh, and verse eight, you have Hosea, the son of Nun,
and then Hosea is Joshua. You don't, nobody remembers the
other 10. 12 spies, 10 cowards, you can't
name them, two heroes. And I mean, anybody who reads
the Bible knows of Caleb and Joshua. I'm gonna say this to
you. I don't wanna say this to me.
Some people are easy to forget. You know, have you come across,
there are people who have, coming in and out of this church, many
years, some of them are unforgettable. I mean, I don't know, Sue, I
think you'd be the only one in here, you never forget Florence
Copeland. Florence Copeland was a single
mom, you remember, Len, single mom, she had a daughter with
Down syndrome, she had another daughter, fixed income, she was
our first Sunday school teacher, She was here from the early days.
She was one of the original people who founded the church. She's on a fixed income. I think
she was living on $600 a month. And they were coming after her
because she had some physical illness and they were coming
after her for her bills. And I sit with her and say, Florence,
I can't do anything to you. Pay them what you can. She'd
always try to pay a little bit. We do a food drive. There's Florence. She tithes. And there she'd be
here, putting food in the food drive. She's unforgettable. Sometimes I'm doing a funeral,
or I'm shopping in a store, and
somebody comes up to me and says, Pastor Frank! And I won't play
the game. And they're like, Pastor Frank,
do you remember me? They see the look on my face.
I don't. I don't remember them. I don't remember when they came
here. I don't think they ever did anything. They just came for a while and
they left. And I know that sounds mean.
I have a really good memory. I think you see that in my teaching. I have a really good memory.
But there are people that, again, they're unforgettable. And then
there are people who make an impression on your life. They
touch your life deeply. They make a difference in the
kingdom of God. And they, like Florence Copeland, are unforgettable.
And, you know, I sat there and I started thinking of the earliest
days in living word. And so many people, there were
many people who were truly unforgettable. But there are a whole lot of
people that are, I just forgot about. And it's the people who
really, again, left their mark. They're the ones you remember.
And Joshua and Caleb were unforgettables. The other 10, right, were, you
know, were forgettable. So it's sad. It's sad. Because these 12 were the cream
of the crop. It wasn't like, oh, you know
what, go to the tribe of Reuben, and you know that guy who sits
out in the sun every day and never does anything? Select him
to be one of the leaders and one of the people who are gonna
go and spy things out. That's not what it was. These 12 were,
these were 12 with potential. They were the best of the best,
and they're chosen, they're standouts, they're all-stars. I'll show you something, again,
people of production. People of, let me say, people
of potential. Potential doesn't equal production. I've seen a lot of people come
into Living Word who have great potential. I mean, I think people
come in and out of Living Word, some of them, the potential to
plant churches and build churches. So there are people that you
see with great potential, but potential does not equal production. What breaches the gap, and I
want you to see this, potential plus performance equals production. And when I'm talking about performance,
I'm not talking about performing in Broadway. The idea of performing is doing
what God has called you to do, being who God has called you
to be. It's about doing the work that God has called you to do. And this is true, I'll tell you,
this is true. When you see a person who has
the potential and they're putting that potential to use with performance,
they produce, they become extremely productive in the kingdom of
God. their consistency, their commitment, their statuitousness. By the way, you can use that
as a word that I just invented. But you see that. And you can see this, you can
see this, it's true in Christianity. It's true in the business world.
It's true in sports. It's true in everything. That
a person could have, I mean, how many times you see athletes
with magnificent potential There's no consistency. They're
a head case, right? They're just, they lack commitment. They're causing problems on the
team. And they can go through an entire career and never become
productive. But I think, again, that's true
of the kingdom. I wanna just add one more thing
here. When, and at times you're in
situations where you are gonna be with people who, again, they
are not performing, and the 10, They are not, I'll tell you,
they are not men of faith. And I think there's a point in
situations like that where you need to pull yourself away. You pull yourself away from the
mediocre, pull yourself away from the average, pull yourself
away from the status quo. You embrace the challenges. These
are people, they basically are running away from the challenges.
You embrace the change. Have you noticed that this world
is changing very rapidly? You need to embrace the change.
And if they can't embrace the change, I think there's a point
you need to move away from them. You embrace the discomfort. They cannot embrace the discomfort. And if you don't, you'll become
like them. Iron sharpens iron. Mold creates mold. You can quote
that too. That's a bolelism. So again,
10 cowards, two heroes. All right, number three, faith's
vision. Proverbs tells us 29, 18, where
there is no vision, people perish. I have a bolelism, I'm giving
you a lot of bolelisms tonight. You can fill up the book of bolelisms.
Where there is vision, the people flourish. Show me a church without vision,
I'll tell you a church that's dying. Show me a church with
vision, I'll show you a church that's growing. You can see it in a marriage,
you can see it in a family, you can see it in a business, you
can see it in a nation, you can see it in a community, in a city. Where there's vision, people
flourish. So in verses 17 through 20, then Moses sent them to spy
out the land of Canaan and said to them, go up this way, into
the south and go up into the mountains and see what the land
is like, whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak,
few or many, whether the land they dwell in is good or bad,
whether the cities they inhabit are like camps or strongholds,
whether the land is rich or poor, whether there are forests there
or not, be of good courage and bring some of the fruit of the
land. Now the time was the season for the first ripe grapes. Before
you can seize it, you must see it. Whatever God has for you, you
need to see it before you can seize it. You need to be able
to truly see the opportunity and grasp onto it. I say this,
the world belongs to visionaries. The kingdom of God belongs to
visionaries. And when I came into this building, and I was
the first one here, and I say this, Lenny, you know, Len was
here, Sue was here, some others that are still from those days,
Gloria. Do you remember what this place
looked like? So we're renting upstairs. We have that area that
the kids have Sunday school in. So we have this room that seats
maybe, I don't know, 75 people and a couple of little rooms
in the back that we could do Sunday school with. And that's church,
that was the church. And I'm looking out the window
every Sunday, and I'm looking at this roof here, and it's the
cathedral roof. And all of a sudden I'm starting
to think, wait, I wonder what it looks like inside, because
it looks like a church from the outside. And then I got in here
one day, and this was a machine shop. There was no wood on the
walls. The ceiling was wide open. See these beams, though? These
beams caught my eye. A cathedral ceiling. Kind of
looks like a church. There was grease all over the
floor. Big, huge machines that were hanging from these beams.
I have to say this, and I think Len grasped onto this. I think Tommy Centrello grasped
onto it. Chris Marr grasped onto it. Gloria
grasped onto it. I saw what I see now. But again, that's vision. And again, where there's vision,
we flourish. It would have been easy to see.
And there were some people who came in, and they basically gave
us all the objections why this couldn't be done. Those two beams
there, that was a wall that had to be knocked down. And there
had to be, and thank goodness Lenny, the engineer, was with
us because he showed us that we could put a big steel beam
across. And there was one point where
the building was, right at the front, was expanding. And the
fear that actually the whole building could fall down. And
Lenny came up with this great idea. And we basically put a
vise on the building and squeezed it all together. But it takes vision. Because it's so easy to see the
problems, so easy to see the obstacles, so easy to see all
the things that couldn't be. But visionaries, they see the
potential. And I believe when you're in tune with God, God
gives you eyes to see. Caleb and Joshua had eyes to
see, the other 10 did not. In your life, what you're gonna
find, there are gonna be times where you're gonna come to closed
doors. And we have a tendency when we
come to a closed door, we stand in front of it staring at the
closed door. Take a step back and open your
eyes because where there usually is a door that's closed, there's
usually a door that God has opened. So there were some things here
that were closed, but there were some things that were wide open
that God was inviting them to come into. Okay, number four,
faith's fruit. So in verse 21 through 25, it
says, so they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness
of Zin, as far as Rehob, near the entrance of Hamath. And they
went up through the south and came to Hebron, Ahaman, Shishai,
Talmai. The descendants of Anak were
there. Now Hebron was built seven years before Zohan in Egypt. Then they came to the valley
of Eshkol and there cut down a branch with clusters of grapes
and they carried it between two of them on a pole. They also
brought some of the pomegranates and figs. The place was called
the Valley of Eshkol because of the cluster which the men
of Israel cut down there. And they returned from spying
out the land after 40 days. So have you had grapes this week? There's a lot of good grapes.
Red grapes, green grapes, purple grapes. Some of the grapes are
really delicious. I love grapes. I love fruit.
I eat fruit. I eat lots of fruit. I'm a little
fruity. Your pastor is fruity, and I
love fruit. I love vegetables, too. But,
you know, when you have a cluster of grapes, just, I mean, you
can hold it in one hand, right? Right, there's a cluster. That's
a big cluster of grapes. Those are some nice Concord grapes.
Have a little bitterness to them, but they're delicious. So, you
know, you can hold it. I ate grapes today. I had a cluster
of grapes and I'm picking it off. Do you understand how big
the cluster of grape was? That they had to carry it with
a pole with two men? This was a land that was flowing
with milk and honey. I won't get into some of the
theories on why these grapes were so big. But I think those
grapes were more like grapefruits than little tiny grapes. And
again, it was a land flowing with milk and honey. They came
back, they experienced that, wow. That's the promised land that
God offers us, a land flowing with milk and honey. Okay, number
five, fears obstacles. So in verse 26 through 29, now
they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation
of the children of Israel in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh,
And they brought back the word to them and all the congregation
and showed them the fruit of the land. Then they told him
and said, we went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows
with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Now watch. They focus on three obstacles
here. The first, nevertheless, the
people who dwell in the land are strong. They're strong. I mean, they're buffed. They
got muscles. They got veins in their arms,
right? They got necks that look like
legs. They're buffed. And then the
cities are fortified and very large. Like Jericho, right? Great walls. Great walls that
a chariot could ride on it. And moreover, we saw the descendants
of Anak there. The Anakites. They're big people. Okay, how big? They're called
Nephilim. the descendants of Nephilim.
The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south, the Hittites and
the Jebusites and the Amorites dwell in the mountains, and the
Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.
There are your obstacles. Want to enter the promised land?
You've got to overcome the obstacles. You wanna go deeper and deeper
in your life with Jesus, wanna enter into a deeper peace, that
peace that transcends all understanding, wanna enter into that joy, right,
that joy in Jesus that could really make your life bulletproof
and undisturbable, wanna enter into that life, but you gotta
overcome the obstacles. I don't know what obstacles you
have in your life. I know the obstacles I'm dealing with in
my life. To achieve success in anything in life, you must overcome
the obstacles. That is, again, a simple truth.
With whatever you're doing, you have to overcome the obstacles.
You have to solve the problems. Life is filled with obstacles.
Do you find this? Every day, I am confronted with
obstacles. It never gets easy. There are
always obstacles in the church, obstacles in our relationships,
financial obstacles, obstacles in our careers. They come every
day. If you're gonna win, if you're
gonna succeed, you have to overcome them. You have to learn to jump
over them, to go under them, to go around them, or to go through
them. But if you're going to, again,
to enter in to the promises of the Lord, you have to overcome
obstacles. And what you're seeing now, the
10, they're like stirring and focusing. They're focused not
on God. They're not focused on overcoming. They're focused on
the obstacles. The people are really big. The cities are fortified. There are some big people there.
So in the midst of this, you have faith's confidence, and
that's in verse 30. And notice again, and Caleb quieted
the people before Moses and said, let us go up at once and take
possession, for we are able to overcome it. We are able. You gotta underline
that in your Bible. For we are well able. That's faith's confidence. What's
a New Testament verse that reminds you of that? Yeah, Philippians
4.13, right? I can do all things through Christ
who strengthens me. I want you to notice this, all
things. Can I do all things through Christ
who strengthens me? If I flap my arms really hard,
can I get off the ground? I've come to a realization at
64 years old of my life. I train, you know, I train every
day. I box, I do jiu-jitsu. I've come now to the conclusion
that at this time in my life, I'm not gonna be the heavyweight
champion of the world. Maybe the welterweight champion of
the world. But I don't think I shavish out at the heavyweight
championship. I've come to the conclusion at this time of my
life I'm never going to be able to bench press 1,000 pounds.
Do you know what the world record is for bench pressing right now?
1,480 pounds. When I was training and
competing years ago, it was 600 pounds. It's 1,480 pounds. The guy's going for 1,500 pounds
right now. That's going to be the new world record soon. I
don't think I'm going to be able to do that. I think if the Lord
gives me all this strength, I don't think it's going to happen. So
I just want you to understand, I think that when it says all
things, it's the things God has called you to personally. It's
the things that he's called you to. So the things that God has
placed before you, I can do all things through Christ through
strength. I mean, if you look at the context of Philippians
chapter four, rejoice in the Lord always. Don't worry about
things, but pray in the peace of God that transcends all understanding. Guard your hearts. Whatever's
positive, whatever's true, whatever's noble, think about such things,
be content. I think that's really the context. But it's what God
has called us to. And that he will give us the
power. And he would have given Israel all the power they need
to conquer the promised land. But they rejected it. All right,
last point, number seven, fear's imagination. 31 through 33 of Numbers 13. But the men who had gone up with
him said, we are not able. Isn't it, there's Caleb saying
we are able? We are not able to go up against
the people for they are stronger than we. And they gave the children
of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out
saying the land through which we have gone as spies is a land
that devours its inhabitants. and all the people whom we saw
in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants, the
descendants of Enoch, came from the giants, and we are like grasshoppers
in our own sight, and so we were in their sight. I just want you
to look, and I'd come back to this. They weren't that big. Don't you think this is kind
of a gross exaggeration? And it's their imagination running
wild. And by the way, that's what fear does. When people are
in fear, their minds, their imaginations go on steroids. And again, they
are conjuring up things that are just untrue and will never
happen. You ever hear that they turn a molehill into a mountain? And that's what happens. They make it much bigger and
they catastrophize it. And basically, again, it's completely
and totally destructive. So they're just obsessing. And that's, again, fear. Abnormal
fear is taking a magnifying glass and just focusing. Hey, do you
have a white piece of paper? Who has a white piece of paper?
Anybody? Does anybody even carry paper anymore? If you just have
a white piece of paper, I want you to do something. I want you
to take the white piece of paper and put a little dot, put a little
dot at the center. Just a little dot. And all you
people with your technology, your iPhones, your iPads, and
your, I don't know what, you're gonna miss out on this. You're
gonna miss out on this big example as you go home and do it. Joanne,
go home and do it. So, right, you have that, you
see that little dot? That's the problem. That's the problem. Now I want you to take the piece
of paper, close one eye, and just slowly move that dot closer
and closer and closer until you've got it right up against your
eye. Have you noticed that it's gotten
bigger? Right? It's gotten bigger. It's enlarged. I've been doing pastoral counseling
for 40 years. I want to tell you something.
I see people come in, and they've got a problem. They've got a
challenge. There's an obstacle. But they are so focused and obsessed
on it that their brain, they can't think clearly, right? They're just totally in a fog.
And all they can think about is that problem. That is totally
solvable. But because they are just obsessed
on it, and again, they're just magnifying it, It's just taken
away their joy, it's taken away their life. So I wanna wrap up
this first part next week and I'll tell you this, just take
a look at chapter 14 because what you see is fear is contagious. And you're gonna see it spread
through the entire nation of Israel. And they all end up dying
in the desert except for two. I mean a lot of people in the
church were not entering in to the, I think, the greatness and
the promise of God because of things like this. Okay, just
faith and fear. I wanna give you a couple of
simple tips, and I wanna take you through this. I think this
is important. I'm gonna rob you of a little bit of prayer tonight.
Isaiah chapter 41, 10. Fear not, for I am with you.
Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I
will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
How do you overcome fear? You overcome fear through the
strength of God. You have to allow God to impart and infuse
you with his strength. The more you allow God to infuse
you with your strength, you're gonna find that you're gonna
be in a place where you're not gonna be living in fear. So how
do we allow God to infuse us, right, with faith? The word of
God, faith comes by hearing the word of God. Well, how else do
we allow God to infuse us with faith? Don't you find when you
worship God, we're worshiping God, doesn't your faith enlarge?
God inhabits the praise of his people. I just get into a time
of worship and you immediately are going to find that God is
going to enlarge your faith. Another one, prayer. Fellowship. You get around people of faith,
and you get around people of real faith, you're going to find
that they're going to enlarge your faith. Just, you know, again,
iron sharpening iron when you're with people like that. So when
again, God will infuse you with faith and he will strengthen
you when you're putting yourself in a place for him to be able
to do that. Here's a second, 2 Timothy 1, verse 7. For God gave us a spirit, not
of fear, but of power and love and control. The word there,
notice, it's a spirit. And we look at this, commentators
and scholars, We don't look at this as the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit would be called
the Spirit, you'd have the definite article, the word the in front
of it, or he's called the Holy Spirit or the advocate. And here,
it's just he gave us a spirit, and I think that what that's
talking about, a spirit of power, a spirit of love, a spirit of
self-control, I think it's talking about, it's the inner attitude. It's your inner disposition.
And God has given us the spirit. But what happens is we need to
cultivate the spirit. How do we cultivate our inner
spirits so that we have greater faith? Become more identified in who
you are in Christ. Remember, I was talking about
that on Sunday. Become more identified with who you are in Jesus. The
more you become solidified in your identity in Jesus, I think
what you're gonna find is the stronger your inner spirit is
going to become. That's a key thing. I find a
lot of Christians, they don't know who they are. So they therefore
act like their identity in the world instead of acting like
who they are in Christ. So I think that's key. Here's
another one. The Lord is my light, my salvation.
Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of
my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? Notice light. The more we live
in the light, the more faith we're gonna have, and the less
fear we're gonna have. The more you live in the dark, the more
fear you're going to have. So we need to walk in the light,
and that is walking in the truth. Psalm 23, verse four, even though
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil, for you are with me, you're right in your staff, they
comfort me. The more you cultivate and develop the presence of God
in your life, you practice the presence of God in your life,
the greater faith you're gonna have. So God wants us, again,
God wants us walking in faith, not in fear. Fear is incredibly
destructive. Be careful what you're allowing
into your life. Be careful what you're allowing
into your minds. Be careful what you're exposing
yourself to. I see, I do see to a point, people
look, again, I believe we're coming, we're coming to the coming
of the Lord. We're getting closer every day. So when you're looking,
you're looking at what's going on in Washington and you're looking
at what's going on in China and you're looking at what's going
on in Russia and the UK, you become obsessed in these things.
I guarantee that's going to create more fear. Know what's going
on, but look at things through the eyes of the Lord and through
his word. And that's going to enlarge your faith. People who
are totally fixated on fear, I really believe they become,
useless to God. People who are living by faith,
they become extremely useful to God. Amen? Let's pray together. Father, we just pray, Lord God,
tonight, Lord, again, you have called us and given us a spirit,
Lord God, not of fear, but of faith. A spirit of courage, Lord,
a spirit of boldness, a spirit of love, a spirit of self-control.
Pray, Lord God, this night, grow, develop, cultivate that spirit
within us. Lord God, let us be truly a people
of faith, a people, Lord God, who enter into the promised land,
who, Lord, take what you've given us, who conquer, Lord God, what
you have set before us, and, Lord God, who defend it with
the greatest amount of courage. Pray, Lord God, a blessing, Lord
God, upon all here tonight, and I pray this in the name of Jesus,
amen. Stand with me, and you know what I wanna do with the
worship team? You're only prepared for one song? Can we do a few
more? We'll do a couple of songs tonight,
just make our worship, our prayer, but as you worship the Lord,
focus on Him. You know what, you can stand
there and do this, and you could be thinking about what you have,
your appointments tomorrow. You could be looking so spiritual
doing this, and again, your mind could be on something else. Focus, just fix your eyes on
Jesus as we worship here. Really come into worship with
Him and exalt Him. Let him just lift you up. You're
gonna find that he's going to he's going to enlarge your faith
Okay, even if you want you can even come you can come to the
altar you could stand sometimes We'd come up and just stand at
the altar and worship up here. You can you can do that Don't
be afraid You're free to move as you desire to move in this
church. I'm gonna sit you can sit you want to stand you can
stand you can kneel if you want to kneel and if you want to dance
just You can't go all over the place and dance, but you can
dance. You don't want to distract others. My 11-month-old grandson was
dancing during worship tonight. His feet were moving up here,
too. I was watching that. It was pretty funny. Thank you, Lord, for the Word. Thank you for your service. Child of Christ. Child of Christ. So that I might touch you. So that I might touch you. Lord, I wanna touch you. Touch my heart. ♪ So that I might see you ♪ So
that I might see you ♪ Lord, I wanna see you ♪ Your glory
and your love ♪ Your glory and your love ♪ And your majesty ♪ Drop it closer. ♪ Drop it closer, dear Lord ♪ Drop it closer, dear Lord
♪ So that I might touch you So that I might touch you Lord,
I want to touch you You're holy I am your ruler and your majesty And your majesty And your majesty They are alive, God is here. Let's worship. They are like We lift our hearts in praise. You fill me with love. You fill me with joy. Cause it's you we worship Cause
it's you we love Cause it's you we love Cause it's you we worship Cause it's you we love Till we
were
When Fear Conquers Faith. Numbers 13:14
| Sermon ID | 3212313595574 |
| Duration | 1:18:11 |
| Date | |
| Category | Midweek Service |
| Bible Text | Numbers 13:14 |
| Language | English |
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