The last time I spoke with you was in Numbers 12 and I told you I really enjoy that story, well today we are picking up where Ken left off in Numbers 14 and to be totally honest Numbers 13 and 14 have a very different vibe, it’s sad, it’s intense, and frankly, there is some wording we will read today that has always caused me some tension.  So, I’m going to warn you on the front end: if you don’t like to think that your actions or choices matter, or that there are ramifications for disobeying God, well, this may get a little uncomfortable today, but I think that tension we may feel here is very important because deep down we not only struggle with trusting God fully with our lives, but I think we can tend to struggle with the idea that there are real ramifications in not trusting God with all of our lives.  So yeah, this is a challenging study today, but so important as we learn the same lesson they were learning…to love God most and to trust God completely.

So last week, Ken took the children of Israel and us to the doorstep of the Promised Land; we find that in Numbers 13, it’s hopeful, it’s exciting, they have finally made it, they are right there!  We saw that they sent 12 spies to scout out the land, which is a smart move, and all 12 see the exact same thing.  They see the incredible land God promised, flowing with milk and honey, and all 12 also see real danger, real warriors, even real giants, and while all 12 see the same thing, only 2 (Joshua and Caleb) think they should go in; the rest say, there is no way we can win; if we go in, we will die.  I liked how Ken put it last week: everything they need, want, and desire is right there for them, just as God promised, but they will have to fight for it.  Well, they don’t listen to Joshua and Caleb; they listened to the other ten spies.  This is a heartbreaking moment that makes their lives so much harder and causes an entire generation to die in the wilderness. God was angry at their lack of faith, and none of that generation was allowed to enter the Promised Land except Joshua and Caleb.  Everything they wanted was right in front of them, but it wasn’t dropped in their laps as they had expected; they were going to have to fight for it, and they weren’t willing to do that.  At first glance, this can sound ridiculous, can’t it?  I mean, after all they have seen, felt, and watched God do, how are they still struggling to trust Him?  But Ken gave us a few things last week that make this not seem ridiculous at all.  We can all relate to the tension they felt here because we experience it too.  God wanted to give them the promised land and promised them victory, but they would have to fight for it.  And it’s the same for us today.  God wants us to experience spiritual freedom, but we'll need to fight for it, engage, and not be passive.  He said the passive Christian doesn’t enter the promised land.  They don’t experience victories in their life.  So many people aren’t willing to fight and engage their hearts, their lives, and work toward Spiritual Maturity, and then are bummed that they aren’t experiencing everything Christianity advertises. But it’s not that Christianity is broken; it’s just that it won’t simply fall in your lap. Your choices and effort matter.  And as we continue our study, today we will talk about the devastating cost of their lack of faith and inability to trust God. 

When you step back and think through what happens here in Numbers 14, I think it takes everything we’ve been building toward in the series, and everything that God has been trying to teach and beat out of the children of Israel, and it all comes to a head right here on the doorstep of the promised land.  It’s like everything they have been through so far was preparing them for this moment.  And I think there is an important question for us to process here: “What does our fear say about our faith or trust in God?”  We are going to see some strong wording here, where God literally calls their repeated refusal to trust Him "contempt."  That word alone brings tension, and we see it twice in this chapter, and you know what I say about Scripture on repeat: we need to pay attention. Here is why I think this response from God and the punishment they receive bring so much tension: first, because we don’t like to think that there are ramifications for our actions; and second, because it makes us feel like fear is wrong or sinful.  As we work through this, I want you to understand that fear itself isn’t sinful, but allowing fear to dictate your life and decisions is. We all feel fear; God created it to protect us, but when fear leads your life, it shifts from a feeling to a refusal to trust God.  And what is the ultimate lesson that God wants us to learn?  To love Him most and trust Him fully…with ALL of us. When I think about loving God most and trusting Him fully, with ALL of us, I think of this quote I heard a lot growing up; it always stuck with me, and it’s so, so true.

“It doesn’t take much of a person to be a Christian. It just takes ALL of them.” Old Christian Proverb

You know, as we study their story, I have been thinking a lot about how similar this wilderness journey is to my own life…all these lessons and tests they go through, all these moments where they are afraid or struggling and then God steps in and provides and protects them, I’m sure it strengthened them and their faith…right up until the next thing hits…and I can relate to that, can’t you?  I think we would all like to think our spiritual growth just flows upward to where we want it to be, but it’s not that simple, is it?  It’s up and down, and then up again, then probably down again, then hopefully up some more.  We are afraid, stressed out, and not sure what to do; God comes through for us in an awesome way, and we are excited, strengthened, and have more trust moving forward.  We may even think we are finally at a good place in our faith after that, but then something else hits, and we struggle again.  Their story is our story, and their journey is our journey.  I’ve been thinking a lot about this quote lately from C.S. Lewis, because it makes us think, and I think it perfectly describes the Christian life.

“The Christian way is different: harder and easier. Christ says, ‘Give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want you.’” CS Lewis 

Why would CS Lewis call the Christian way both harder and easier?  I've been thinking about this a lot: I think it's harder because there are certain parts of us and certain areas of our lives that we don't want to give over to God, and I think it's easier because Jesus does all the work for us, so we no longer have to pretend that we are in control or that things depend on us!  Basically, it's harder because God asks for everything—every part of us.  But it is easier because Jesus handles the rest!  I don't know about you, but just about the time I think I trust God fully, something else hits, and I realize there are still things and people that I care about deeply, still outcomes and responses that I want to see happen that I struggle to give over to Him.  That's the hard part: trusting God with ALL, giving it ALL over to Him, and that is the journey we are all on: learning to let go of all of us to truly experience more in God.  Do you see it?  It’s harder and easier.  

And I think this is where the tension is for the children of Israel.  It’s so easy to read this story and think this is insane: who would act this way? But if we slow down and really look into it, we see that it isn’t so ridiculous at all; actually, we do this too.  I’m sure that every time God came through for them, they truly were strengthened in their faith and more confident in Him, but He just keeps pressing in more and more, and with each moment, God seems to be taking them deeper, the tests get harder, and more challenging as God dives into their heart conditions, and I want you to see this mirrors the journey we all are on to true Spiritual Maturity.  Think about their journey as a progression we have been studying: each test is more challenging than the last, each one diving deeper into their hearts.  And their faith, just like ours, progresses up and down, and hopefully up again. They were trapped at the Red Sea, and God saved them from death by the angry Egyptian army, and they worship and are grateful, and I’m sure they knew confidently that God had them.  Then it was basic life needs: water and food, and God provided, and once again, I’m sure they were strengthened and grateful for God’s provision, but while those seem like the most dangerous tests, they were actually the easier tests.  Why?  Because it’s one thing to trust God when you desperately need him and have no other options, it’s death or God…trapped at the Red Sea, it’s death or God, dehydration with no water in sight accept undrinkable water…death or God, or starvation with no Sheetz or McDonalds in sight, yeah we trust and need you God, it’s either that or death, but it’s a whole other thing, when you have options and other choices you can make.  And look at where we are, now faced with the most challenging of all the tests, with everything they have been promised right in front of them, and all they have to do is say yes to God, who they have watched do incredible, miraculous things for them, on repeat now for like two years.  This sounds easy at first glance, but when you think about it, this is the ultimate test of their faith. They'll have to fight some big, scary people to do that, which puts the people they love and care about most at risk, and this is really the first time they have other options; there are different escape routes available to them.  So, they have some choices to make: will we put our lives and the people we love most in God’s hands and fight, or turn around and play it safe?  Do you see it?  This is when we know if we truly trust God and love Him most.  They probably thought they trusted Him fully after all they had been through, but here they are, with options and lives on the line; this is the biggest of all tests, the final test. Pass it, and you get everything you want, but they fail miserably. 

So, the tests have been progressing, and all through this journey they keep coming, and they move from basic needs to live, life, water, food, to God digging deeper into their hearts and pushing in on what they will choose to worship, on what happens when God is taking too long, on how they respond to adversity and challenging circumstances, on how they respond when God gives one of them more than another, and now here on the doorstep of everything they want, we see the biggest test they face.  God says, “Do you trust me with all of you and what you love most?”  Everything I promised is here for you, but you are going to have to fight for it, and they just won’t do it.  It’s so easy to read this and think about how crazy it is that fear wins out here, but before we totally brush this off as something we would never do, we need to see something here, so let’s take a closer look at something Ken read us last week. 

Numbers 14:2 “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

So, they weep and cry all night, devastated at the news of the dangers in the land, and they make their choice. Moses and Aaron are devastated; Joshua and Caleb try to talk some sense into them, but all the people want to do is kill them for it and run away before they are killed by these giants and scary people that make them feel small and afraid.  Then God responds, and we see the first of two times he speaks of them treating Him with that word, contempt.

Numbers 14:10…Then the glorious presence of the Lord appeared to all the Israelites at the Tabernacle. 11 And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? Will they never believe me, even after all the miraculous signs I have done among them? 12 I will disown them and destroy them with a plague. Then I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they are!” NLT 

Ok, yikes…but let’s talk.  Do you remember how we talked earlier about God's way being harder and easier?  Easier because He does all the hard work, but harder because He wants ALL of us.  Well, it is the same for them too; their story is our story.  God has done all the hard work for them, but that doesn’t mean this is easy, and their journey is full of tests that expose what they still need to give over to God.  That is the harder part; He wants ALL of us! And we all have certain things that are easy to give to God, and other things that we love and care so deeply about that are very difficult to trust God with…but ALL includes those things, too.  Did you see what these people said in verse three? Did you pick up on this? 

Numbers 14:3 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?” NLT

Hmm…well, now we may be on to something here. So, the spies come back and report that all the good stuff God said was there is there, but there are giants and scary people there too. So, there is real danger, and a real fight coming against giants and intimidating warriors, and what are these people worried about?  Their loved ones.  The people they care about most.  They don’t want to see their families and loved ones hurt or killed.  Does it still sound crazy that they are afraid to fight for the land?  Remember, they are learning to trust God and love Him most; this test is diving deeper into what they love most and whether they are willing to trust God with those things.  I don’t know about you, but I’m great with a lot of this trusting God and loving God most stuff, better than I have ever been in my life, but my biggest challenges and struggles with giving God ALL of me are found right here, in trusting God with the people I love the most.  I have a prayer I repeat often each day, whenever I worry or struggle with my loved ones' lives, actions, and choices.  It’s a one-liner I keep on my phone; I write it in my journal every day, and I pray it on repeat as I work through life with my people. And I will be honest: it’s the hardest prayer of my life. God, I trust you with them. That’s different, isn’t it? Remember, the Christian life is hard and easy; well, this is the hard part.  The easy part is accepting salvation, the love, grace, leadership, provision, and protection God gives…the harder part is giving him full control of the things we care most about.  And just about the time we think we are there, trusting God fully, something else hits and exposes that we still hold on to things.  Can we trust God with what we love the most? I think when we see that, this story becomes way less crazy and way more relatable.

We’ve talked about fear and what it does in this series; if you remember all the way back at The Red Sea, we looked at five things fear does in our lives.  Fear convinces us we are on our own. It causes us to forget all the amazing ways God has come through for us in the past. It convinces us that we see the whole story, but we don’t. It always assumes the worst. Fear, at its core, is all about control. We want certainty. We want guarantees. We want answers. We want to know exactly how things will work out. But God rarely gives us all of that. Instead, He gives us Himself, and that is enough…and we see all five of those things on display in this tragic story today, but I think we can add a few things that fear does to us from this moment.  Fear blocks us from experiencing all we could and should in life and never allows us to rest; fear will wear us out.  Here they stand, on the doorstep of the promised land, steps from finally resting from this brutal journey…but fear just won’t allow them to enter their new home and experience the rest they so desperately need.  The writer of Hebrews will cite this moment we are in today by saying their fear was actually unbelief; a lack of trust or faith in God, that meant that they would not enter His rest.

Hebrews 3:16 “And who was it who rebelled against God, even though they heard his voice? Wasn’t it the people Moses led out of Egypt? 17 And who made God angry for forty years? Wasn’t it the people who sinned, whose corpses lay in the wilderness? 18 And to whom was God speaking when he took an oath that they would never enter his rest? Wasn’t it the people who disobeyed him? 19 So we see that because of their unbelief they were not able to enter his rest.” NLT 

We have been talking about the promised land as this new home, but maybe we need to see it for what it truly is: a place of real rest that God is providing for these exhausted, beat-up people.  Fear won’t let them enter it; their inability to trust and believe in God keeps them from entering His rest. It’s another story for another day, but we live in a culture that never rests, too, and for the same reasons: unbelief, an inability to trust God.  But let’s get back into our story and move into that tension I was telling you about earlier. The challenging part of this chapter for me is how God sees what they are doing and what happens because of their inability to trust God fully, with all parts and people in their lives.  God was furious, but Moses pleads with Him to spare these people, and God does; but it doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences. It is so tough, but there is a cost…

Numbers 14:20 Then the Lord said, “I will pardon them as you have requested. 21 But as surely as I live, and as surely as the earth is filled with the Lord’s glory, 22 not one of these people will ever enter that land. They have all seen my glorious presence and the miraculous signs I performed both in Egypt and in the wilderness, but again and again they have tested me by refusing to listen to my voice. 23 They will never even see the land I swore to give their ancestors. None of those who have treated me with contempt will ever see it. NLT

Whew, this is so tough; an entire generation will not enter the Promised Land except Caleb and Joshua...and we get that word “contempt” for the second time here.  That word bothers me because I wouldn’t have called what Israel was doing contempt, or even what the writer of Hebrews called it, “rebellious unbelief” or “disobedience.” Doesn’t that seem way too harsh? Especially when we see that they weren’t wanting to put what they love most at risk?  I mean, maybe we would call it fear, anxiety, or just uncertainty.  Maybe we could say they are just playing it safe. I might even call it smart, responsible, realistic, or simply protective of the people they care about most.  But not contempt; yet that is exactly what God calls it.  What does that mean?  Well, contempt is a feeling of intense dislike or disdain, or regarding someone as unworthy of respect, or an inappropriate lack of fear or reverence for something. In the Bible, it means treating God, His commands, or sacred things as worthless, lowly, or beneath respect. It is beyond a simple mistake; it is an act of rebellion and disrespect. That is strong wording, isn’t it? Why is God so upset here? It isn’t because they are afraid; it is because, after everything God had shown them, they still don’t trust Him with ALL of them.  The minute it came down to putting their people at risk, or having other options available, they struggled to trust Him fully.  Their fear was basically saying: “God, I know what You’ve done, but I don’t believe You can be trusted with what’s next.  Lord, I just can’t trust You with them.” Ouch. That’s devastating, and the consequences of this mean decades of more wandering, no rest, and no promised land for an entire generation, who will now die in the wilderness…wow.

Now, this is heavy, and there is tension in this, but I want to point something out here because it’s easy to read this and think, if God is angry with them for being afraid, does this mean I can never feel fear in my life? Does this mean that if I’m afraid, God is angry with me? No. The Bible never says faithful people won’t feel fear, and I could give you countless examples of good and faithful people who do feel fear. Fear is an emotion God gives us. The question is not whether we can feel fear, or whether we will have moments when fear comes.  The question is: How do we respond to it when it does? This is so important: Faith doesn’t mean we feel no fear; it just means fear doesn’t get to run the show in our lives.

You know, this is probably the heaviest and saddest area of this whole story, there is real tension here, because they are standing on the doorstep of everything they ever dreamed, their best lives possible, a land flowing with milk and honey, a land God promised them, and set up to bring them real rest after all the years of slavery, and wandering the desert…and all they had to do was trust Him with all of their lives, including the people they loved the most…and they couldn’t do it and a hard life just got harder…it’s so easy to read this and think, who would do that?  Who would see God part the sea, protect and provide, and still not be willing to trust God with what’s next?  Well, we would; we do. Their story is our story. 

We’ve learned a lot about fear in this series. We started with a list of five things, and now our list has grown to seven, but as we talk, I’m realizing it’s actually eight.  Fear convinces us we are on our own, it causes us to forget all that God has done, it convinces us we see the whole story (we don’t) It always assumes the worst, and it wants control, and we see all aspects of that in our story today, and if we are honest, we feel this stuff too, but today we see some devastating consequences of fear.  Fear blocks us from experiencing all we should and could in our lives, and it’s exhausting; it won’t allow us to rest.  Fear will wear us out.  But there is something else that we need to see. Fear wants to lead our lives, and if we let it, that means that God is not.  Think about it.  We may believe that we are living our lives fully surrendered to God, but we are not trusting Him fully. We may trust Him with some, or even most of our lives, but that isn’t what God asks for; God wants ALL of us.  

As we watch this story unfold, the children of Israel have moved through one test after another; each one is more difficult than the next, and I’m sure at this point they were really confident in God, they had watched Him do amazing things for them, leading them by a pillars of cloud and fire, He parted the sea, destroyed their enemies, provided food and water, saving them from sure death more than once.  They’ve seen Him shake mountains; heard Him speak like thunder, and I’m sure they have faith and believe that they believe fully, right up until they have to go to war with giants and place the people they care about most in harm's way.  Remember, the Christian way is hard and easy.  It’s easy because God handles it all, and it’s hard because God requires it ALL from us. 

So, let’s close right here today. God wants all of us, not part and not most, and I think we all have some stuff we are fine giving over to God, and some things that are hard to trust God with, and I want us to truly think about this.  Where are you at with this?  For me, just when I think I have this all figured out, something else hits my life, and I realize there are still parts of ALL that I need to give over to God. How about you?  Can you pray the one-line prayer I find to be the most challenging prayer in life?  God, I trust you with them.  Who are the “them” in your life that you may need to stop holding onto, stop trying to protect, guide, or control, and give over to God? Be honest here…does God get ALL of you?  Who or what do you love the most?  If you aren’t sure, go back to our exercise from the idols talk; do you remember that?  I asked you to pretend that you and God were meeting later today at Baker’s to talk, and He has already told you that when you get there, He is going to ask you for something that you have to give over to Him; you have to let go of it and never have it again.  What would be the thing you don’t want Him to ask you for?  Now today let’s take it a step further, let’s say you are right on the doorstep of everything you could ever want in life, your best life possible is just steps in front of you, but to have it all you are going to have to fight for it, now you will win God promised you that, but you will have to put the things you care about most at risk, you have to truly place them in God’s hands, could you do it?  This is so important because God wants all, and those things that we struggle with, that we care deepest about, that we don’t want God to ask for, those are the very things that block us from truly experiencing God. The more we care about it, the harder it is to trust God with it, and that is the point. God wants all, not part, not most, and that is the journey they were on, and it’s the same journey we are on today, learning the ultimate lesson of life, which is all about learning to love God most and trust Him fully…this journey has ups and downs, it has many painful lessons, and challenges along the way, but it leads to our best lives possible, it did for them, and it still does for us, but we can’t and won’t experience it, until we give Him ALL.

“The Christian way is different: harder and easier. Christ says, ‘Give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want you.’” CS Lewis