Leading Friends in Faith (Draft)
Notes
Transcript
TBD
TBD
Diagnose the Patient:
You have faith, but yu don’t lead your friends
You are leading your friends, but not in faith
Prayer:
Father thank you so very much for another opportunity to teach and share your Word! I am so excited and honred that you have chosen me for this. I do not take it for granted. Lord I pray for fresh revelation and wisdom from heaven as I prepare. Help me to see your word and I just ask and allow you to show me and teach me new things so that I may effectivly communciate. Lord I pray all that listen gain something from this teaching and most of all I pray that it gives you glory! I pray Lord this really empowers and teaches students to lead in faith. I also pray for my team Lord. I pray they get re energized and are prepared to sacrificially and faithfully serve! Thank you Lord! Amen.
Passage: Prescription
Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”
Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
Problem/Impact
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. But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak! 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.”
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!”
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!” 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. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!”
Then the whole community began weeping aloud, and they cried all night. Their voices rose in a great chorus of protest against Moses and Aaron. “If only we had died in Egypt, or even here in the wilderness!” they complained. “Why is the Lord taking us to this country only to have us die in battle? Our wives and our little ones will be carried off as plunder! Wouldn’t it be better for us to return to Egypt?” Then they plotted among themselves, “Let’s choose a new leader and go back to Egypt!”
Then Moses and Aaron fell face down on the ground before the whole community of Israel.
Solution - Leading in Faith
Two of the men who had explored the land, Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, tore their clothing. They said to all the people of Israel, “The land we traveled through and explored is a wonderful land! And if the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us safely into that land and give it to us. It is a rich land flowing with milk and honey. Do not rebel against the Lord, and don’t be afraid of the people of the land. They are only helpless prey to us! They have no protection, but the Lord is with us! Don’t be afraid of them!”
Thesis:
It is popular to fall in line with what is normal or curlutally accepted, but what do we do when what that contrast what God has called us to? We must be friends who LEAD others in FAITH, regardless of the opposition.
Problems:
Fear keeps you from leading
Lack of faith and trust in God keeps you from leading
Observations:
The promise - Exodus 3:8 God gives an inheritance to a land of “Milk and Honey”
The land had exactly what God had promised and Moses had told them, BUT - they where intimidated by what was seen
Descendants of Anak - they are compared to Nephimlim possibly out of fear. When we are in a state of fear things seem magnified and bigger than they actually are.
Verse 29 - they are reporting what has already been told to them in Exodus 3:8 - God was going to take them to the home of the Hitties, Jebusites etc… Fear stricken
Caleb was not swayed by what was seen He was full of Faith in the unseen
Sometimes you got to silence the noise and speak up
Verse 31 fear has convinced these men that they are unable to achieve the promise of God
They spread a bad report; Oh how toxic and dysfunction gossip can become. it is destructive and not apart of God’s design for us. Out of fear comes gossip.
Verse 33 - Fear is fixated on what is seen. They made an observation that fed their fear. they also created rhetoric in their own head. “and we looked the same to them.” How would they even know. Fear assumed.
The gossip was fruitful in sowing fear and discord
Fear caused them to complain and ask Why
Fear tempts them to go back to slavery cause they think that is better than what lies ahead
Faith will take us to uncertainty and unknown but faith protects us
Verse 4 - Are you a leader who tells people what they want to hear or what they need to hear....?
The community was quick to forget what God did. A testimony of the power of leaders good or bad. Leaders of faith are neccisary
There is a contrast between faith in God and fear that springs from what is seen. They confimed God’s promise but they were not focused on that instead they where focused on what was seen. Even after God had proven himself time and time again. Interesting. Some people are just sheep.
Gen 15:18 same nations God promised to Abraham are the same nations they are fearful of
The people rebelled, they reject the convenant, they question God’s intention and purpose, they reject God’s chosen leader (Moses), They wish to die in the desert - Which ultimatly is granted to them.
Milk and Honey - Milk represents product of herds. Honey represents natural resources - Forshadowing that god gives provision for us to successfully work the land. He doesn’t just give everything to us, but He will provide what we need to be successful.
Rough Outline:
Intorduction
Welcome
YTH Night every Wednesday
Sermon Series Unbreakable: A Series on Community
Recap: 1. Find Friends of Faith 2. Be a Freind of Faith
Message Title: Leading Friends in Faith
“tonight I want to talk to you about leading your friends in faith”
Illistration
The Highschool Party I took Tori too
We all have leadership in us
HARD QUESTIONS: But are we all leading our friends in faith? Or are we being led by friends who have no faith?
Main Passage Intro:
We are going to talk about two leaders who lead in Faith (Caleb & Joshua)
Context to Numbers 13 & 14:
So I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and lead them out of Egypt into their own fertile and spacious land. It is a land flowing with milk and honey—the land where the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites now live.
The Lord has Moses send out Leaders of each tribe as spies into the land “Which I am giving to the Isralites”
They were to inspect the land and it’s inhabitants
God was possibly testing there faith
They explore the land and report back **Where we pick up**
Numbers 13:27–33 (NLT)
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. But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak! 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.”
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!”
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!” 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. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!”
Numbers 14:1–5 (NLT)
Then the whole community began weeping aloud, and they cried all night. Their voices rose in a great chorus of protest against Moses and Aaron. “If only we had died in Egypt, or even here in the wilderness!” they complained. “Why is the Lord taking us to this country only to have us die in battle? Our wives and our little ones will be carried off as plunder! Wouldn’t it be better for us to return to Egypt?” Then they plotted among themselves, “Let’s choose a new leader and go back to Egypt!”
Then Moses and Aaron fell face down on the ground before the whole community of Israel.
Summarize:
Called by God to inspect the land He was to give them
They confirm what the Lord said “A land flowing with milk and honey”
Problem #1: YOU LACK FAITH
Although God’s Word was true they where to focused on what was seen
When you are focused on the seen rather than the unseen you are not in a posture of faith
Impact:
You can’t lead your friends in faith if you don’t have it
But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak! 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.”
Funny how this is the same land and inhabitants that God said He was going to give to them
Problem #2: LEADING FROM FEAR
If you are not leading from faith then you are leading from something else
one of those things could be fear - For the isrealites it was fear
Fear of uncertainty
Fear of the unknown
Fear of Man
**PREACH THIS** Many of you are living a life following the standards of culture because your scared to go against the grain
Impact
You rob your self from the inhertance God wants to give you
“Why is the Lord taking us to this country only to have us die in battle? Our wives and our little ones will be carried off as plunder! Wouldn’t it be better for us to return to Egypt?” Then they plotted among themselves, “Let’s choose a new leader and go back to Egypt!”
They received that wish they died before inheriting the land the Lord promised.
Numbers 14:6–9 (NLT)
Two of the men who had explored the land, Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, tore their clothing. They said to all the people of Israel, “The land we traveled through and explored is a wonderful land! And if the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us safely into that land and give it to us. It is a rich land flowing with milk and honey. Do not rebel against the Lord, and don’t be afraid of the people of the land. They are only helpless prey to us! They have no protection, but the Lord is with us! Don’t be afraid of them!”
POINT 1: LEARN TO TRUST GOD
POINT 2: FACE POPULAR CULTURE WITH BOLDNESS
