Let's Take the Land
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Our Vision:
What are you a part of here?
11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers,
12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,
13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;
14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,
15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—
Our Mission:
To equip, uplift, and unite believers to become like Christ, be close to Him, and develop a solid foundation in their faith.
God is calling us to take this mission into our communities!
He’s given us the tools, the people, the knowledge. He’s shown us how *lacking* all of these things are in the modern church.
1 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
2 “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.”
God has called us as a group.
He hasn’t just called me. Did God say, “which I am giving to Moses”? No, He was giving it to the group! To all the children of Israel!
What more did they need?
The names of the people who went.
only briefly speed through this.
3 So Moses sent them from the Wilderness of Paran according to the command of the Lord, all of them men who were heads of the children of Israel.
4 Now these were their names: from the tribe of Reuben, Shammua the son of Zaccur;
5 from the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat the son of Hori;
6 from the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh;
7 from the tribe of Issachar, Igal the son of Joseph;
8 from the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea the son of Nun;
9 from the tribe of Benjamin, Palti the son of Raphu;
10 from the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel the son of Sodi;
11 from the tribe of Joseph, that is, from the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi the son of Susi;
12 from the tribe of Dan, Ammiel the son of Gemalli;
13 from the tribe of Asher, Sethur the son of Michael;
14 from the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi the son of Vophsi;
15 from the tribe of Gad, Geuel the son of Machi.
when you walk with God, your name is going down. It’s going to be written in God’s books. You become part of the history of the kingdom of God!!!
You get an opportunity to be a person of faith, or a quitter of fear.
If your name is going down, how is it going down? As a caleb & joshua? Or as one of these others! Their names are written forever as men who let fear keep them from God’s promises.
16 These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun, Joshua.
Joshua was going to be Moses’s successor. Here, however, he’s just a man being sent to spy. Why did Moses give Hoshea a special name?
17 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 to the mountains,
18 and see what the land is like: whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, few or many;
19 whether the land they dwell in is good or bad; whether the cities they inhabit are like camps or strongholds;
20 whether the land is rich or poor; and 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 of the first ripe grapes.
Moses was wanting strategic information simply to know how to approach taking the land! That’s it!
research can help you count the cost, but you have to be careful. You don’t research to know what you should be scared of. You research to know How to be wise as serpents, harmless as doves.
16 “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.
26 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; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land.
27 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.
28 Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there.
29 The Amalekites dwell in the land of the South; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.”
They should have stopped at “flows with milk and honey and this is its fruit.”
What was supposed to be a simple report about how to approcah the land they were being given, turned into a fear fest! A pity party! A “focusing on the problems and trials of life” session.
30 Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.”
32 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.
33 There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”
What were their eyes on? Themselves.
They should have said, “Look at what great and mighty men God is going to deliver into our hands!”
“Imagine the glory God is going to get when this impossible situation turns around for His promises!”
I’m inviting all of us to take the land together!