Have you ever seen the movie ‘Groundhog Day’? It’s an older movie where a TV weatherman name Phil wakes up every day to the exact same day, over and over and over. He keeps looping and can’t get out of it. It drives him a little crazy.
Do you feel like that? Do you feel like you are looping in life? Every day is like the last one. Same fears. Same insecurities. Same complaints. Same financial struggles. And every time you think about getting out, all you can see are reasons why you can’t get out. So, you keep looping. Over and over. You pay the bills and watch the kids get older. You feel stuck.
When someone talks to you about why you are stuck, are you overly sensitive about it? How do you respond? Maybe your spouse or friends are scared to even bring it up because they know how badly you will respond. Are you overly defensive? Do you quickly give excuses as to why you are stuck? Maybe you blame others as to why you are stuck. You know, the usual, your parents, your spouse, your kids, your job, maybe even God.
Have you given up? Have you given up on believing you could ever live with courage or fun or freedom? Maybe you still go to church but inside you have given up. Be honest with yourself. Are you faking? You make people believe your Christian life is great while at the same time you loop in misery.
This is what I want you to know today. God is leading you to a breakthrough. God wants you to have freedom. God wants you to experience healing. And yes, you will need to face a battle to experience that breakthrough. That battle is going to take all the courage you can manage to enter into that battle. And yes, it will seem impossible. And on the other side of that battle, there is joy and freedom like you cannot imagine.
And where is God in all of this? You also must know, God is with you, you can trust Him. You can have faith in God as you enter the battle. He has been with you since He put you together in your mom’s belly. If you look back over your life, all God has done had has done is provide and protect you. He is with you.
However, if you don’t trust God, if you don’t enter that battle, unfortunately, you will continue to loop and it will feel like a life of oppression. You will be living out ‘Groundhog day.’
Real quickly, we are in an Old School series. We are looking at the Old Testament to discover what God was doing and what it means to us today. We talked about Abraham and Moses. We talked about Israel being freed from slavery and facing certain death. We talked about the journey in the desert that should have taken two weeks but instead took over two years.
Remember what Sam said last week? In all of God’s love and provision for them, they wanted to go back to slavery. Why would they want to go back into slavery? Sam nailed it. Things got hard. It took too long. They felt like they knew better than God. They didn’t think their freedom looked like it should. It was such a great talk. He gave us handles on how to push through. Stay focused on Jesus. Remember your salvation story. And watch what is coming out of your mouth.
If you notice, these past few weeks of this Old School series, we have kinda stalled. There are so many things we wanted to bring out about the interaction between God and the Children of Israel because it mirrors our relationship with God. I want to pick up the story where Sam left off. The Children of Israel are facing the promised land. Everything they walked through for two years is for this moment. God tells them to send twelve spies into the promised land. They take forty days to spy out the land. They come back to report what they saw. Ten spies report how hard it would be to take the land. Two spies, Caleb and Joshua, reported that it can be done. They should go to battle immediately. After the twelve spies shared their report, here is what happened.
Let’s read.
Vs 1 Then the whole community began weeping aloud, and they cried all night. 2 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. 3 “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?” 4 Then they plotted among themselves, “Let’s choose a new leader and go back to Egypt!” NLT Numbers 14:1-4
Vs 26 Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, 27 “How long must I put up with this wicked community and its complaints about me? Yes, I have heard the complaints the Israelites are making against me. 28 Now tell them this: ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord, I will do to you the very things I heard you say. 29 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. 30 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. NLT Numbers 14:26-30
Vs 34 “‘Because your men explored the land for forty days, you must wander in the wilderness for forty years – a year for each day, suffering the consequences of your sins. Then you will discover what it is like to have me for an enemy.’ 35 I, the Lord, have spoken! I will certainly do these things to every member of the community who has conspired against me. They will be destroyed here in this wilderness, and here they will die!” NLT Numbers 14:34-35
What happened?
God was leading them to the promised land. They knew God was with them because all God did for over two years was provide and protect them. They also knew, to walk into the promised land, they would have to face a battle. And that battle seemed impossible to win. So, they froze. Fear stole their courage. They refused to follow God. They rejected God. What happened to them? They ended up looping in the desert for another forty years. One year for every day they spied out the land until that generation died. That’s alarming. What an awful end to what was great story. When you read this story in scripture, your heart just sinks.
I want you to think about it from God’s point of view. Their lack of faith in God literally wore God out. God viewed it as rejection. For more than two years, all God did was free them from slavery, provide for them and protect them. How did they respond to God? All they did was embrace complaints, embrace fear, embrace rebellion against God and their leader. And after all God did for them, they concluded it would be better to go back into slavery. They wore God out.
Don’t you want to ask yourself, who in their right mind would live like this? Who would ever experience God, His grace, His love and then later refuse to follow Him? Who would experience God and then later embrace complaints, embrace fear, embrace rebellion? Who would want to stay miserable and loop in misery? The answer might surprise you. You would. I would. This is a story about us.
Every day that we chose to stay stuck, we are just like the Children of Israel.
Every day we don’t have the courage to deal with the things we have been ignoring, we are just like the Children of Israel.
Every day we spiritually embrace complaints, embrace fear, embrace rebellion, embrace our excuses and blaming others, we are just like the Children of Israel.
Every day we allow our fear to steal our courage and want to quit, we are like the Children of Israel.
Please hear me. God is leading you to a breakthrough. God wants you to have freedom. God wants you to experience healing. And yes, you will need to face a battle to experience that breakthrough. That battle is going to take all the courage you can manage to enter into that battle. And yes, it will seem impossible. And on the other side of that battle, there is joy and freedom like you cannot imagine.
Where is God in all of this? You also must know, God is with you, you can trust Him. You can have faith in God as you enter the battle. He has been with you since He put you together in your mom’s belly. If you look back over your life, all God has done has been to provide and protect you. He is with you.
However, if you don’t trust God, if you don’t enter that battle, unfortunately, you will continue to loop and it will feel like a life of oppression. You will be living out Groundhog day.
What is it that you are avoiding? What are you hiding? What do you refuse to deal with? What do you refuse to talk about? What excuses are you making? Who are you blaming?
Okay, I’m going to challenge you. Are you ready? There are two kinds of people who attend church. Some are like the ten spies and some are like the two spies. The ten spies embraced complaints, embraced fear, embraced rebellion against God and their leader. And after all God did for them, they concluded it would be better to go back into slavery. They didn’t engage the battle. They wore God out.
Two spies, Caleb and Joshua, did want to engage the battle. And you will discover later that they are the only two of this generation to enter the promised land.
This means there are people who attend church and never engage the battle to find freedom. Because of that, they are looping. They are stuck. They are defensive. They have their excuses. They are quick to blame others. And they are miserable. They embrace complaints, embrace fear, embrace rebellion. Honestly, these are people who are wearing God out.
This also means, there are people who attend church who engage the battle for freedom. They aren’t looping anymore. They are free. Honestly, these people will bring you to life. I am reminded of the verse that Sam gave us last week.
With their words, the godless destroy their friends. NLT Proverbs 11:9
Remember what Sam said? This verse is talking about your friendships, your spouse. You know if a friend or spouse is godly by how they use their words. Godly people, people who have engage the battle to find freedom use their words to bless others and build them up. And that starts at home with your spouse.
What is so interesting to me about this story is that 10 spies give a negative report and fear goes viral. Then 2 spies give a positive report and courage doesn’t go viral. Why is that? I think it’s because of our sin nature that is more open to fear.
There are two kinds of people who attend church. Those who engage the battle and those who never engage the battle and are wearing God out.
Paul said this.
22 Get rid of your old self, which made you live as you used to – the old self that was being destroyed by its deceitful desires. 23 Your hearts and minds must be made completely new, 24 and you must put on the new self, which is created in God’s likeness and reveals itself in the true life that is upright and holy.
25 No more lying, then! Each of you must tell the truth to the other believer, because we are all members together in the body of Christ. 26 If you become angry, do not let your anger lead you into sin, and do not stay angry all day. 27 Don’t give the Devil a chance. 28 If you used to rob, you must stop robbing and start working, in order to earn an honest living for yourself and to be able to help the poor.
29 Do not use harmful words, but only helpful words, the kind that build up and provide what is needed, so that what you say will do good to those who hear you. 30 And do not make God’s Holy Spirit sad; for the Spirit is God’s mark of ownership on you, a guarantee that the Day will come when God will set you free. 31 Get rid of all bitterness, passion, and anger. No more shouting or insults, no more hateful feelings of any sort. 32 Instead, be kind and tender-hearted to one another, and forgive one another, as God has forgiven you through Christ. GNT Ephesians 4:22-32
Do you see it? Engage the battle. Get rid of your sinful self. Deal with your stuff.
What is it that you are avoiding? What are you hiding? What do you refuse to deal with? What do you refuse to talk about? What excuses are you making? Who are you blaming?
Probably the worst thing you could do this week, is do nothing and embrace complaints, embrace fear, embrace rebellion. Please hear me. To do nothing, to hear the words and do nothing, to hear scripture and do nothing, is the worst thing you could do. To enter next week the same as last week and continue looping in misery, it’s the worst thing you could do. To hear a Sunday message and say, ‘Well, I’m just not good at that stuff – see you next week!’ is the worst thing you could do. Don’t be that guy. Don’t be that Christian. The ‘I don’t engage the battle’ Christian. All you will do is loop in misery and wear God out.
We are going to close with this. God is leading you to a breakthrough. God wants you to have freedom. God wants you to experience healing. And yes, you will need to face a battle to experience that breakthrough. That battle is going to take all the courage you can manage to enter into that battle. And yes, it will seem impossible. And on the other side of that battle, there is joy and freedom like you cannot imagine.
Do you see how the Children of Israel is a story about us?