Safe Zone? or Faith Zone?
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Introduction:
Ever take a risk?
Ever take a change?
Or do you like to play it safe?
Not every risk is worth taking.
Do not miss opportunities for growth because it is too risky.
Are you playing it safe?
Too Safe?
There is a quote from Erwin McManus I want to share with you:
I want to reinterate the fact that the center of God’s will is not a safe place, but the most dangerous place in the world. God fears nothing and no one. To live outside God’s will puts us in danger, but to live in His will makes us dangerous.
Throughout Scripture there is evidence of great risk:
Moses did not play it safe when he returned to Egypt to confront Pharoah Ex. 5:1
Gideon was not playing it safe when he dismissed most of his army Judges 7:7
David was not playing it safe when he walked up to Goliath 1 Sam. 17:32
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were not playing it safe when they refused to bow down to the image Nebuchadnezzar had erected in the Babylonian plains Dan. 3:16-18
Was Esther playing it safe when she put her life on the line to save her people, telling Mordecai “If I perish, I perish”? Est. 4:16
Peter was not playing it safe when he stepped out of the fishing boat to walk across the water to Jesus Matt. 14:29
Paul was not playing it safe when he preached to Governor Felix about “righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come” Acts 24:25
John was not playing it safe in his old age when he sent a book from Patmos filled with images of dragons, beasts, and coming days of wrath and judgment.
You and I cannot play it safe either.
We cannot afford to play it safe at this time. We are facing the end times, the last days and it is not the time to play it safe.
Let’s take a look a Caleb in the Old Testament, he occupies only thirty verses in the Bible, but what verses they are.
He is a great man of faith!
Leaves a legacy of courage and a powerful example of risk-taking and future grabbing courage.
In the book of Numbers Moses sent 12 men:
Joshua, Caleb and 10 others - an advance party to go to the promise land to gather information.
These guys left the safety of their camp and crossed the Jordan River and slipped into Canaan.
Their mission:
take notes of the land
observe the enemy
study the structures
estimate population
Then come back with enough intelligence to to help Moses in planning the invasion of the land God had promised the Israelites.
So they went up and explored the land from the wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, near Lebo-hamath. Going north, they passed through the Negev and arrived at Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai—all descendants of Anak—lived. (The ancient town of Hebron was founded seven years before the Egyptian city of Zoan.)
Hebron was the ancestral home of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob but now inhabited by the descendants of Anak
The sight of these warriors terrified the spies
The mission of these men took them 40 days.
Thinking there will be potential failure is hard to overcome - fear of failure is crippling.
Have you heard these names?
Shammua
Shaphat
Igal
Palti
Gaddiel
Gaddi
Ammiel
Sethur
Nahbi
Geuel
Most likely not, these are the names of the 10 spies who risked their lives on a spy mission only to lose heart, doubt God’s power, and miss God’s will.
Numbers 13:4-15 is our point of reference here this moning
These men made terrible mistakes and we must look at their lives as an example of what not to follow.
God wants us to go forward, are you ready for that?
In Numbers 13 the ten spies magnified every threat. They looked at the way God had made for their future and saw only holes.
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!”
Notice the holes they found:
We are not able to go up against these people
They are stronger than we are
The land devours its inhabitants
The men are of great stature
The men are giants
They are from Anak, the land of giants
We are like grasshoppers in our eyes
We are like grasshoppers in their eyes
Going forward means taking risks, not playing it safe.
Going forward means there will be opposition.
Going forward will be uncertain
Remember this verse:
For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.
We must recognize the risk and properly evaluate the opposition.
When God is the leader you have the best leader.
When He calls you to go forward, set your face towards it and go forward.
The 10 spies maximized the opposition and minimized the wonderful oppotunities that lay ahead of them.
They had a dim perception of what God had in store for them.
The really believed that God had set them up for failure.
Can you take that in?
And not only did they believe this but their unbelief was contagious!
Numbers 14 talks about that
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?”
Their preception of God would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic.
How could they think this way?
How could Israel think this way?
God had done so much for them.
delivered them out of slavery
parted the Red sea for them to walk across on dry land
gave them His law
fed them in the wilderness
promised them a land that flowed with milk and honey
How could they forget all this so quickly?
How much more did they need God to do to prove He is faithful?
How often do we forget how faithful He is?
Do we question him in times of trouble?
Do we cry out where are you when we are discouraged, hurting or ill?
Do we wonder if He cares for us in the shadow of the love poured out on the cross?
It is easy for us to shake our heads at the Israelites when we have questioned, complained, gotten angry too when things did not go as we hoped or wanted.
It does not mean He is not faithful.
Friends we need to take these actions to heart and going forward breath faith instead of fear.
We can minimize God’s ability to guide us in the future.
We may dread the future and where we think God is leading us.
In doing this we are exactly where the enemy wants us - in a place of avoiding risks and playing it safe.
How could we have such little faith?
Don’t minimize the opportunities God has for you in the future.
Go forward in confidence and courage to do the task He has set for you.
With their unbelief Israelies discarded the precious, powerful, future God intended for them. Their act of defiant unbelief caused them to have a terrible penalty.
There were two severe sentences.
The ten men who gave the evil report were killed immediately by a plague.
The ten men Moses had sent to explore the land—the ones who incited rebellion against the Lord with their bad report—were struck dead with a plague before the Lord. Of the twelve who had explored the land, only Joshua and Caleb remained alive.
2. The children of Israel who listened to the ten spies and refused to go forward were also penalized.
You will all drop dead in this wilderness! Because you complained against me, every one of you who is twenty years old or older and was included in the registration will die. You will not enter and occupy the land I swore to give you. The only exceptions will be Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.
Obedience is so important
What does God want you to tackle, to possess, to accomplish for Him?
Unbelief forfeits your opportunities and puts your objectives in trouble.
Keep grabbing the moments God gives us with child-like wonder.
Part 2
Remember courageous Caleb?
He and Joshua had a minority opinion among the spies.
Have you ever had a differing opinion but felt passionately about it and no one would listen?
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!”
Imagine Caleb’s frustration when the whole nation shouted down his words!
BUT GOD HEARD !!!
As time passed, one by one the older Israelites passed away and their bodies dotted the desert.
Even Moses passed away.
Joshua and Caleb were the sole survivors of their generation.
Joshua succeeded Moses and led the Israelites across the Jordan River and into the land of Canaan. Joshua led them through conquest after conquest and allotment after allotment.
Looking through the book of Joshua 14 who shows up again?
Caleb, he came back to see his spy friend Joshua.
Now the people of Judah approached Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know what the Lord said to Moses the man of God at Kadesh Barnea about you and me. I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land. And I brought him back a report according to my convictions, but my fellow Israelites who went up with me made the hearts of the people melt in fear. I, however, followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly. So on that day Moses swore to me, ‘The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly.’
With the passing of time Caleb’s faith grew. His mind was sharp, his spirit was strong, and he was filled with child like enthusiasm.
God’s promise was still an obsession of Caleb’s heart
Are we obsessed with God’s promises? God’s leading? and direction?
Take a look at Caleb’s life for some steps:
Caleb’s Exuberance
Caleb’s Exuberance
“Now then, just as the Lord promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the wilderness. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then.
Can you feel the energy that fueled Caleb’s life? He was courageous at the age of 85.
At the time of life where many think their time has passed and what they have done is done, Caleb lived with exuberance and his age & abilities go to the background to achievement.
“Exuberance carries us places we would not otherwise go…”.
Psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison
It is hard to go forward without a fiery zest for life like Caleb had. That same joyful eagerness makes it possible for you and I too.
May we never loose the wonder of the worshipful, promisefilled life Christ died to give us.
You can ask God for joy, and you can choose to be exuberant in life based on His promises.
It is a matter of saying Lord with your help I am going to be like Joshua and Caleb not like the other ten!
Be excited about your future
Be excited about your future
When you are exuberant about your life you are excited about your future.
First of all, Caleb did not come to visit with Joshua to reminnise about the past. He had the future in mind.
Take a look at the conversation:
Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he said.”
Don’t you just want to shout YES!!
At the age of 85, Caleb was ready to claim the hill country, tame the land, and provide a lasting inheritance for his children.
The city of Hebron was the ancestral home of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but now was inhabited by an evil tribe of huge warriors as the descendants of Anak.
This area was still untaken by Israel, unpossessed, unclaimed. The giants had scared everyone away.
Remember this: no matter your age or circumstances, no matter what hill you need to take, that kind of enthisiasm will carry your forward.
Something we need to remember our choices are important. No matter how we are raised we can’t get in on other peoples choices. We have to make the choice to serve or reject Him
There comes a time when we have to account for our actions on an individual level before God.
Are you ready to give God your whole heart?
If we can’t get excited about the future, the past won’t matter.
Even when we feel like the world is falling apart, even in the midst of economic down turn, global pandemics, political upheval. We need to look ahead to the next step that God has for us.
Caleb did not let his age stop him.
Powerful conquest comes with powerful reward.
When you knockdown a giant you become a giant yourself.
He had a vision for the future, to move forward and had a greatest victory of his life at the age of 85.
Be excited about the Assignment
Be excited about the Assignment
Caleb was excited about what he had to do.
Joshua and the Israelites had not succeeded in driving our the occupants of the large section of the promised land.
Do you get excited about what God is calling you to do?
There was unfinished business.
Caleb drove out the three groups of Anakites—the descendants of Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai, the sons of Anak.
Caleb did what he was told and he did it immediately.
He did it in the strength of the Lord!
Take a look at the word enthusiasm.
This word is made up of the Greek words for in and God - En- theos-ism.
It was used to described the zeal of the early Christians.
When we have God’s strength/engergy within us we get a surge of power that is like an atomic reaction in our hearts.
To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.
Conclusion:
Only with God’s energy within us can we keep barreling forward into the remainder of God’s plan, His will for our lives.
The story of Caleb is told in 30 verses of the Bible. But 6 times in those verses we are given the secret to his risk filled risk-taking life:
But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it.
But my servant Caleb… has a different spirit in him and has followed me fully. Num. 14:24
‘Surely none of the men who came up from Egypt, from twenty years old and above, shall see the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because they have not wholly followed Me, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, and Joshua the son of Nun, for they have wholly followed the Lord.’
They have not wholly followed me, except Caleb Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, and Joshua the Nun, for they have wholly followed the Lord. Num. 32:11-12
except Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him and his children I am giving the land on which he walked, because he wholly followed the Lord.’
…because he wholly followed the Lord Deut. 1:36
Nevertheless my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the Lord my God. So Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land where your foot has trodden shall be your inheritance and your children’s forever, because you have wholly followed the Lord my God.’
I wholly followed the Lord my God. So Moses swore that day, … because you have wholly followed the Lord my God. Josh. 14:8-9
Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day, because he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel.
because he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel. Josh. 14:14
Caleb Wholly Followed, Wholly Followed, Wholly Followed, Wholly Followed!
By the time he was 85 most of his generation had given up hope and died.
Caleb still had a bright fire burning.
He still wanted to risk his life for the greatest possible task God could give him.
Incorporate risk in your walk with God.
What risk is God talking to you about?
Have the courage to confront the change of the unknown.
Courage in the midst of a pandemic.
God created us to count not to be counted.
Move forward out of the safe zone and into the faith zone!
Are you willing?