BETWEEN THE NUMBERS
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Numbers 12:1-16
INTRODUCTION
-I am an Oregonian born and raised and so is my wife Laura.
-When we were 17 we met working at TCBY in Gresham.
-We went to youth group together which is usually a safe and appropriate dating practice for teenagers. (Hint, hint)
-After 1 year of college, we got married and moved to Missouri where we attended Ozark Christian College.
-Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Missouri.
-Some people pronounce it “misery” and it’s not a bad place to be from…but it’s not Oregon. Not by a long shot.
-There are no mountains. There are no forests like we know them.
-They have tornadoes, flash flooding, and hail storms of biblical proportions.
-Everyone there fights about the Cards vs Royals, or the Chiefs vs Rams…and I don’t like any of those teams.
-Whenever I wore my UofO hat people asked me if I liked the University of Oklahoma. That was no place for me to be.
-So after 4 long years in misery, and the day after my last final, I loaded everything up in my station wagon, and began the long journey back to the Promised Land called Oregon.
-At this point in our Numbers series; Moses and the people of Israel had been traveling for a year through the wilderness on their way to the real Promised Land.
-There were roughly 2 million people heading through the wilderness.
-And in the year since their Exodus from Egypt they’ve spent time organizing, preparing, and setting up what would be the foundations of their new society.
-Chapter 13 details the final steps of preparation before they cross over to the land flowing with milk and honey.
13 The Lord now said to Moses, 2 “Send out men to explore the land of Canaan, the land I am giving to the Israelites. Send one leader from each of the twelve ancestral tribes.” 3 So Moses did as the Lord commanded him. He sent out twelve men, all tribal leaders of Israel, from their camp in the wilderness of Paran.
-This would have been an exciting time for God’s people.
-If you’ve ever considered moving to another town you probably visited there before you moved.
-You’d go check out some potential houses.
-Maybe visit the local schools. Check out some churches.
-See what kind of activities are available, which stores they have.
-You’d probably do some scouting before you moved, even if you just did it online.
-God was very strategic about this scouting trip.
-They didn’t want to send in too many people and be discovered, but he wanted each of the 12 tribes to have an official representative on site.
-The idea was that they would all see the same things together.
-And that together these 12 tribes would be committed and vested in this great undertaking.
-vs 5-16 lists the names of the men who were sent.
-Most of them you’ve never heard of:
Shammua, Shaphat, Caleb, Igal, Hoshea, Palti, Gaddiel, Gaddi, Ammiel, Sethur, Nahbi and Geuel.
-If you expecting a boy there might some name ideas for you!
-vs 16 tells us that Hoshea was also known as Joshua who would become the right hand man of Moses.
-These 12 men were given the task of scoping out the land.
-They weren’t really explorers, they actually more like spies.
-They were sizing up the opposition before moving in to take over.
-And this was a massive undertaking.
-To march 2 million people out of Egypt, to organize them, train them, and lead them to take over fortified cities and towns, and start a nation…was a bigger task than any of us could imagine!
-For perspective, 2 million people is half the population of Oregon
-And they were invading a land that only 10% of the sq miles in OR
-For people in modern society it’s almost too hard to comprehend
-If I got 11 of you together and said let’s go scout out Washington County I think the Lord is going to give us the land…you’d think I was crazy. This was a really big deal!
EVERYWHERE GOD LEADS REQUIRES FAITH.
-From the very beginning everything that God did to establish Israel was done by faith. Read Hebrews 11 sometime.
-Abraham lefts his home by faith.
-By faith Isaac foretold of future blessings for his descendants.
-By faith Jacob blessed Joseph’s sons. And by faith Joseph predicted they Israelites would leave Egypt one day.
-Heb 11 says Moses led the slave revolt in Egypt by faith.
-God arranged everything for the Israelites in a manner which required faith.
-And here they are scouting out 10,000 sq miles of land to take over without tanks, machines guns, or a GPS. That’s faith!!!
-You know what? It still requires faith to go where God leads.
-In fact if it doesn’t require faith, it’s probably not God leading.
-Everything that God leads us to do requires a degree of faith.
-It takes no faith to do what you know you can do.
-It takes no faith to stay exactly where you are.
-It takes no faith to operate in your comfort zone.
-God has given us some general instructions to follow.
-Don’t swear. Don’t lie. Pay your taxes. Don’t fight w/each other.
-It doesn’t take a huge amount of faith to follow such instructions
-But when God is calling us to action, when he’s leading us into a new work, or some ministry opportunity…it always takes faith!
-And in spite of all that Israel had seen God do, they would still have to enter the Promised Land by faith.
17 Moses gave the men these instructions as he sent them out to
explore the land: “Go north through the Negev into the hill country. 18 See what the land is like, and find out whether the people living there are strong or weak, few or many. 19 See what kind of land they live in. Is it good or bad? Do their towns have walls, or are they unprotected like open camps? 20 Is the soil fertile or poor? Are there many trees? Do your best to bring back samples of the crops you see.”
-This was a great endeavor. They were gathering intel for their people. There was a risk of being caught and killed.
-But you can’t take over the Promised Land from a recliner in
your living room!
-To go where God was leading, to do what God was directing, required them to take action. It’s always that way.
THE RIGHT RESPONSE TO GOD’S LEADING IS OBEDIENCE.
-Think about the things that God sets before us today:
-We’ve all felt that tug to share Jesus with someone.
-Many of us have heard God’s call to go on a mission’s trip.
-We’ve felt conviction about helping someone who is poor.
-At times we’ve had the sense that we should take a stand on something that might make us unpopular.
-We’ve felt that leading to disengage from a setting or situation that was not for us.
-I suspect we all know what it’s like to have the Holy Spirit lead us to act in some situation.
-We’ve all experienced that internal tug-of-war with our feelings when it comes to time to do something for Jesus Christ.
-The question is not usually, “Is God leading?”
-The question is “am I willing to obey?”
-Will I obey the one I call my Lord?
-I’ve trusted Jesus with my deepest secrets, my darkest deeds.
-I’ve accepted his offer for forgiveness and salvation but…will I obey when my Lord calls?
-And for most people, the honest answer is “sometimes.”
-When we first got our boxer Sassy, she was fairly well trained.
-She was my dad’s dog and he had her pretty dialed in.
-She would sit when you said sit.
-She would shake when you said shake.
-But she would not lie down when you said lie down.
-You could say it repeatedly. You could point to floor. You could force her do it for a second, but she did not want to sit down.
-But you know what? I wasn’t her master…my dad was.
-After two years in our house…Sassy is learning to respond to my instructions. It’s taken some time and some effort.
-But now she even lays down when I tell her to.
-If you think training dogs to obey is hard, try working w/people!
-Much of the Christian faith is us learning to follow the instructions of our Master.
-We’re being trained & disciplining ourselves to respond when he calls.
-We’re in a fight to bend our will into conformity with his will.
-And that isn’t something that just happens one day.
-That’s something that we learn and struggle with over the course of our entire lives.
-It doesn’t happen accidentally. We’ll never be perfect at it.
-But as we walk in step with Jesus each day, we slowly learn to let Jesus take the lead in our lives.
-And that’s the struggle that the Israelites had since the arrival of Moses in Egypt.
-Vs 21-22 describe the route that the 12 spies took, some of the cities they saw.
-And in verse 23-24 it says they brought samples of the local produce back with them.
-At first listen, that may sound like a triumphant return.
25 After exploring the land for forty days, the men returned 26 to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community of Israel at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran. They reported to the whole community what they had seen and showed them the fruit they had taken from the land. 27 This was their report to Moses: “We entered the land you sent us to explore, and it is indeed a bountiful country—a land flowing with milk and honey. Here is the kind of fruit it produces.
-They scouted the land, they came back safely, they brought back some groceries. Promised Land is looking pretty good.
-But these next few verses mark one of the most significant moments in the history of Israel.
-We’ve all had moments like that in our own lives.
-Defining moments that affect the direction of our lives!
-Moments when God’s will and our wills collide and things change
-Sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse.
-Here is the end of the report that the 12 spies gave.
28 But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak! 29 The Amalekites live in the Negev, and the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country. The Canaanites live along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and along the Jordan Valley.”
-Can you imagine how excited those 2 million people would have been for the return of those scouts?
-They were waiting in eager anticipation counting the days until their return.
-They would have immediately been peppering them with questions. What did you see? How is the land?
-What’s the weather like? Do they have an Olive Garden?
-But instead, the leaders of the 12 tribes gave a report that is disheartening and frightening!
-The people were like giants. There towns are impenetrable.
-We don’t stand a chance. We are doomed!
-Henry Blackaby authored a great book years ago called “Experiencing God.” And in his book he says:
“God’s invitation for you to work with Him always leads to a crisis of belief that requires faith in action.” Henry Blackaby
-I first came across that saying, “the crisis of belief” 12 years ago when we left our church and our home to start Adventure.
-We believed God was calling us here. We obeyed when we packed up and moved. But we had that crisis of belief!
-I liked where I was. I was doing good where I was. I was comfortable where I was. That call to McMinnville was scary.
-Even after we came there were many days where I struggled to have faith that God had called us and would see us through.
-Did I really believe what God says or not?
-When God is calling us…we have that crisis and then…
-OUR ACTIONS REVEAL WHAT WE REALLY THINK ABOUT GOD.
-In the 1950s the Governor of Massachusetts was a man named Christian Herter.
-He was running for reelection and was out hustling for votes.
-He had spent all morning campaigning and dropped by a church picnic having eaten nothing all day.
-He got a plate and got in line, and a nice church lady put a piece of chicken on his plate and turned to the next person in line.
-"Excuse me," the Governor said, "do you mind if I have another piece of chicken?"
-"Sorry," the woman told him. "I'm supposed to give one piece of chicken to each person."
-"But I'm starving," the governor said. Couldn’t I have just 1 more?
-“Sorry," she said. "Only one per person."
-The Governor, "Do you know who I am?" he said. "I am the governor of this state."
-And she said, "Do you know who I am?" "I'm the lady in charge of the chicken. Move along, mister."
-He may have been governor, but that lady was in charge.
-Who’s really in charge of our lives?
-We can say “God” right on cue. We can call Jesus our “Lord.”
-But our actions always speak louder than our words.
-When God calls us to act, we often experience that crisis of belief
-In that moment we have to decide what we really believe about God.
-Am I going with God, or staying right where I am?
-The 12 spies were divided.
30 But Caleb tried to quiet the people as they stood before Moses. “Let’s go at once to take the land,” he said. “We can certainly conquer it!”
-Caleb had confidence in what God had said. He had no reservations about following God…his faith & actions matched up
31 But the other men who had explored the land with him disagreed. “We can’t go up against them! They are stronger than we are!” 32 So they spread this bad report about the land among the Israelites: “The land we traveled through and explored will devour anyone who goes to live there. All the people we saw were huge. 33 We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!”
-10 of 12 men were read to follow God: that’s a 16% AR
-Over the years I’ve found the most perplexing issue of faith for people is knowing the will of God for their lives.
-First let me tell you that the will of God does not revolve around your life. Your life is supposed to revolve around the will of God.
-But so many of us forget that and don’t even consult God in the biggest decisions of our lives.
-People considering new jobs have you stopped to ask God what he wants or just started sending out apps?
-When you’re making big financial decisions do you consult God or just borrow and spend?
-For you students deciding which college to attend. Have you asked God which college he might want you to attend?
-For those of you who are dating, or dieting, or trying to raise your kids…have you asked God what he wants for your life?
-Or…are you just doing what you want to do and expecting God to bless it? (repeat)
-I purposely left out a detail for the “big finish” this morning.
-In vs 17 the scouts were told to look at the hill country; that’s the outskirts of the Promised Land.
-Vs 28 tells us they took a look at the fortified towns and cities.
-The scholars suggest that God was going to start them off with little battles and little challenges…and move them ahead slowly.
-But like so many of us…they jumped ahead of God.
-They went ahead without him. They skipped step B & C and jumped right ahead to steps L, M, N, O, P and then panicked.
-We’ve all done that! We’ve gotten ahead of God and realized we were out there on our own…
Galatians 5:25 “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”
-Those are words to live by! Keep in step with the Spirit.
-Don’t get ahead of God and don’t lag behind. Keep in step.
-God had spoken. It was time to act.
-They experienced a crisis of belief.
-They were wrestling with their faith in God.
-The nation of Israel was at crossroad that day.
-Next week we’ll see what they decided to do. It’s history.
-But many of you are at a crossroad in your life today and it’s time for you to decide who you’re going to follow.
GOD’S WILL LEADS TO MATURITY, DEEPER FAITH, AND BLESSINGS.
-Every time we follow God we learn that we can trust him.
-We learn that following him is good for us.
-As we experience the blessings that come from following him we learn to stop fighting him so much, and willingly follow.
OUR WILL KEEPS US IMMATURE, SHALLOW IN OUR FAITH, AND FRUSTRATED.
-All that sounds sad, but ultimately it means we miss out on God’s blessings. That the worst part about it.
-We’ll talk about that more next week.
