It's All How You Look at Things

Notes: It's All How You Look at Things

Numbers 13

Joshua 14

SPEAKER:

Greg Laurie

WORSHIP TEAM:

Harvest Worship Band

Welcome to Harvest Sunday Morning!

Sunday, January 3, 2016 — 10:00 a.m.

You are in a spiritual battle as a believer, do you want to advance or retreat?

It's 2016!! Where's my spaceship?

Time passes at the same rate always, yet as we get it older it seems to go faster. We actually have less new experiences as we get older, and it is said that is why it seems to go faster.

We don't know what the new year holds but we know who holds the year.

This year there will be opportunities as well as obstacles.

God has a plan, He always has a plan.

Daniel 4:35 NKJV

[35] All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; He does according to His will in the army of heaven And among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain His hand Or say to Him, "What have You done?"

With our eyes on the Lord we can rest assured that He will do great things.

We can make this our best year ever!

Hebrews 12:1 NKJV

[1] Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

What may be a weight to one, may not necessarily be a weight to another.

There are relationships or an activity that may not be bad in general but they are holding you back spiritually.

Are the things you doing a wing or a weight?

Where should you be looking? If you are driving, you can should be looking ahead. As a Christian you should be looking towards Jesus. Where I look affects how I live.

How we view God determines how we view life. There is no area of your life that this view does not affect you.

Numbers 13:25-28 NKJV

[25] And they returned from spying out the land after forty days. [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.

Numbers 13:30-33 NKJV

[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." [31] But the men who had gone up with him said, "We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we." [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."

Numbers 14:1-2 NKJV

[1] So all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. [2] And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, "If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness!

All these 12 men saw the same thing, yet they saw it differently.

The majority saw all kinds of problems. They have a small god. The minority have a big God and saw all the opportunity available to them.

Do you look at things with faith or with concern?

God will always honor His word when it goes out.

Why they didn't enter the land of Milk and Honey:

1. They focused their attention on the obstacles instead of their objective.

Numbers 13:28 NKJV

[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.

2. When you allow fear to grip you, everything is affected.

Numbers 14:2-4 NKJV

[2] And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, "If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness! [3] Why has the LORD brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?" [4] So they said to one another, "Let us select a leader and return to Egypt."

Had they forgotten how bad things were in Egypt?

God can do more with 300 believers the he can with 10,000 half hearted followers.

4. God does not want us to run from our giants, He wants us to attack them!

Numbers 14:9 NKJV

[9] Only do not rebel against the LORD, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has departed from them, and the LORD is with us. Do not fear them."

Addiction, gluttony, fear, or a threat, we are to attack them with our faith in God to be with us.

Force your giant into the light of day! Call on God and pray for his power. You don't negotiate with giants, you cut off its head.

1 Samuel 17:51 NKJV

[51] Therefore David ran and stood over the Philistine, took his sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him, and cut off his head with it. And when the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled.

How do we attack our giants? You attack the power that controls the person, satan. God will hear your prayers.

Your don't have to live in a wilderness, you can enter the land of milk and honey:

Joshua 14:7-12 NKJV

[7] I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land, and I brought back word to him as it was in my heart. [8] Nevertheless my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the LORD my God. [9] 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.' [10] And now, behold, the LORD has kept me alive, as He said, these forty-five years, ever since the LORD spoke this word to Moses while Israel wandered in the wilderness; and now, here I am this day, eighty-five years old. [11] As yet I am as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me; just as my strength was then, so now is my strength for war, both for going out and for coming in. [12] Now therefore, give me this mountain of which the LORD spoke in that day; for you heard in that day how the Anakim were there, and that the cities were great and fortified. It may be that the LORD will be with me, and I shall be able to drive them out as the LORD said."

When God gives you the strength, you can do whatever the Lord calls you to do. Louie Zamparini is a perfect example of this.

Even though Caleb was older, he had not lost his strength.

Caleb's secret to spiritual longevity was his complete faith in the Lord.

No matter what you are facing, God is stronger than your obstacles, with your faith in Him you can overcome them.