How does one follow Jesus well in college? Nate Hilgenkamp answers this question by leading us through an in-depth study of Numbers 13 & 14. For more information about Revive Texas, head to revivetexasministries.org and follow us on Instagram @revivetexasmin.
[Intro]
You're listening to the Revive Texas podcast. Revive Texas is a student-led ministry at the University of Texas at Austin that exists for all college students to experience Jesus Christ and enrich their relationship with him. To learn more about Revive, head to our website at ReviveTexasMinistries.org and stay connected by following us on Instagram @revivetexasmin. Thank you for listening, and we hope this message encourages you.
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[Nate Hilgencamp]
Well, I am Nate Hilgencamp, and I'm coming to you from Waco, TX, but I tell you what–it is so good to be in Austin, TX tonight. Since y'all left The Big 12, I think I can say "Hook-Em Horns" now? Let's go baby! Come on! That's right! And I cannot wait for y'all to beat A&M in just a couple of months, it's gonna be awesome! Yeah.
Well, recently my wife and I, we had a disagreement and I have done my best to convince her that she is wrong and she has done her best to convince me that I am wrong. So I decided there's no better way to resolve this disagreement than to ask a thousand of my new closest friends who was right or wrong.
Which is some great marriage advice. If you ever get married, just involve other people in your disagreements. So would you help me out? Would you help me figure out who's right between my wife and I? Here was the disagreement.
Recently I saw a picture of a shoe online. We didn't have a disagreement over like how cool the shoe was, but the color of the shoe. Yeah, so I see this picture.
I bring it to my wife and she just saw something different than what I saw, yeah. Because, listen to this, how many of you, how many of you like me, see gray and teal? Gray and teal. Yeah, keep those hands raised.
Yes, there we go. How many of you, like my wife, see white and pink? White, yeah. You're crazy.
You're crazy. I've never once seen white and pink. Now I'm going to tell you who's right. I'm going to tell you who's right. Listen to this. So I did some research.
I did some research and I realized that Vans does not make a gray and teal shoe. Yeah, so they're white and pink. Which just blows my mind.
Like, because all I've ever seen is gray and teal, even now, that's all I'm looking at. And y'all, this idea has just been crazy to me. Like, how can, y'all are wild already.
How can two people look at the same thing and walk away with two different perspectives? How can two people look at the same thing and walk away with two different perspectives? And that's really what we're going to talk about tonight. And we're not just going to talk about shoes, because this happens a lot of times in life. It's not just looking at shoes, it's looking at other things, because I bet you've seen something like this.
I bet you've seen two different people go through a breakup at the same time and see it in two very different ways. One person can go through a breakup and think, I am unwanted, I am undesirable, and my future is broken. Another person can go through a breakup and say, this is really, really hard, but I'm still loved, I'm still desired, and I've still got a hope and a future.
Now how can it be that two people look at the same thing but have two very different conclusions? You see, in life, not everyone will see things the right way. In fact, I would venture to say, most people will not see things the right way. I just want to make sure that you do.
I'm here tonight to make sure that you view your life through the right lens, because they asked me to teach on how to follow Jesus well in college, how to live a good life in college. The only way you can live a good life is if you have a good vision for your life. So we're going to talk about how to have a clear vision so you can have the right perspective in your life.
We're going to look at a story in Scripture where 12 people all saw the same thing, but not all of them walked away with the same conclusion. So if you have your Bibles, we're going to be in the book of Numbers tonight, Numbers chapter, yeah, that's the first person anyone ever that anyone has been excited to read from the book of Numbers. It's the fourth book of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers.
We're going to be in Numbers chapter 13 and 14 tonight. And I bet most of you don't really know the history of the book of Numbers, so let me give it to you. Perhaps you know the story of the Exodus, maybe you grew up in church, maybe you didn't, but you might know that the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt for years and years and years and years.
Eventually, God comes and appears to a man named Moses, and he says, Moses, I'm going to use you to let my people free from Egypt and into freedom. So Moses goes to Pharaoh and says, let my people go, and Pharaoh says no, no, no, over and over and over again. So God brought plague upon, plague upon, plague upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians until finally Pharaoh said, get out of here.
And as they're getting out of there, they come up against the sea. Because they've left slavery, they're trying to find freedom, and they come up against the sea, and as they see the sea, they turn around, and what do they see? They see that Pharaoh has changed his mind, and Pharaoh and his entire army is chasing down the Israelites to retake them and bring them back into slavery. So the people of God go to Moses and say, Moses, have you brought us out here to die? And Moses goes to God and said, God, have you brought us out here to die? And God says, absolutely not.
And he parts the sea, so the Israelites walk through on dry ground, and then when Pharaoh and his armies walk through the sea, he closes the sea, and they drown. So the Israelites make it through to the other side. The only problem was the other side was the desert.
So once they get in the desert, there's no food for them to eat. So the Israelites go to Moses and say, have you brought us out here to die? And Moses goes to God and says, God, have you brought us out here to die? And God says, absolutely not. And then he provided something called manna for them every single morning.
It was a form of bread so that they could eat each day. Now a year and a half after the Exodus, we come up on what we're about to read in Numbers chapter 13. The Israelites have been walking through this desert, and they've come up on what we know as what's called the Promised Land.
God has said, I'm going to give you a land, and they come up on the edge of it. Now once they come up to the edge of the Promised Land, Moses picks 12 men to be spies. They are sent into the Promised Land, and he tells them to go and survey everything in the land.
And the 12 men that he chooses is one representative from each one of the 12 tribes of Israel. There's a man named Jacob, he was later renamed Israel. He had 12 sons, and Moses picked one descendant from each one of those 12 sons, sent them into the Promised Land, and they surveyed everything about the land.
They looked at the cities in the land, they looked at the people in the land, they looked at the terrain in the land, they even looked at the fruit in the land. And Scripture actually says that they cut down grapes that were so large they had to carry them back on poles, which seems like an exaggeration, but here's a picture of the grapes grown in that region today. The clusters are so large that you have to carry them back on poles.
So they carry down grapes, they cut down pomegranates, they cut down figs, and after looking at the land for 40 days, they came back to the people of God who are on the edge of the Promised Land, and they had a report about this land, and here's what they had to say in Numbers chapter 13, verse 26, they came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the desert of Peron. There they reported to them in the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. They gave Moses this account, we went into the land which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey.
In fact, here's its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there, the Amalekites live in the Negev, the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country, and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.
So they go, this land is amazing, like it is flowing with milk and honey, and there's figs and pomegranates and grapes. It's an amazing land, but there's some really big bad guys who live here, and I don't think they want us to live here. They've got fortified cities, and the people are strong, and we would have no shot against them.
So the people of God begin to panic, but then this happens in verse 30. Then Caleb, who was one of the spies, silenced the people before Moses, and he said, we should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it. Now the other spies start to get nervous that the Israelites are going to trust him rather than their reports.
They just start to make up stuff about the land that they had just seen. Verse 31, but the men who had gone up with him said, we can't attack those people. They are stronger than we are, and they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored.
They said, the land we explored devours those living in it. Not the people, but the land. They'll just swallow you a lot.
All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there, the descendants of Enoch come from the Nephilim. We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.
So they go, y'all, trust us. Do not listen to Caleb. This land will kill us.
These people will kill us. We just spent 40 days in this land, and we are confident that we stand no shot against this enemy. This land is not best for us.
Now, my question is, how can it be that 12 men all saw the same thing, but not all 12 men came to the same conclusion? How can it be that 12 men saw the same fruit? They saw the same people. They saw the same cities. They saw the same terrain, and yet they came to two different conclusions.
How can it be? Here's why. They weren't looking at the same thing. They weren't.
You see, 10 of the men were only looking at a problem, while two of the men were only looking at a promise. Ten of the men were only looking at the giants in the land. Two of the men were looking at the God who oversaw the land.
You see, they came to different conclusions because they were looking at it through two different lenses, and here's how they came to two different conclusions. Point number one, who you trust changes how you perceive your problem. Who you trust changes how you perceive your problem, and this is important for us because problems are inevitable in your life.
We're all going to have problems. You're going to have relationship problems, you're
going to have school problems, you're going to have health problems, you're going to have financial problems, you're going to have work problems. Problems are inevitable in your life, but the right perspective on those problems is not, and 10 of these men did not have the right perspective, and let me show you just once again what it looked like.
At the very end of their report, they said they saw these really big, strong people, and this was their conclusion in verse 33. We seem like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we look the same to them. In light of our problem, we seem really, really small.
Y'all, we stood back to back up against these guys, and we are teeny tiny in comparison to them. They're going to ruin us. Now, they were right in assessing the difficulties.
Like these cities were fortified. The armies were huge. The people were strong.
Like they weren't just making this up. They were right in assessing the difficulty, but they came to the wrong conclusion, and here's why. They looked at their problem and compared it to their power.
When they should have looked at their problem and compared it to God's power. Because you see, in this text, they go, in light of our enemy, we seem like grasshoppers. When they should have gone, in light of our God, our enemy looks like grasshoppers.
You see, their conclusion goes, we stand no chance up against these big, bad guys. When they should have gone, these big, bad guys stand no chance up against who our God is. You see, they came to the wrong perspective because they put their trust in the wrong person.
They came to the wrong conclusion because they thought that their problem was their problem to solve. In fact, it looks a little bit like this. Imagine if this afternoon I flew from Waco to Austin.
I didn't. I drove. But imagine if I got in a plane at the Waco Airport and flew down to Austin, Texas.
And let's just say I get in my seat 14D and I sit down and imagine that I get really, really nervous. And I just start to panic because I think, how in the world is this plane going to get from Waco to Austin? I've never taken an hour of pilot lessons. I've never flown a plane before.
Like, how in the world am I going to get this plane from Waco to Austin? Why would that be ridiculous? Because that ain't my job. My job is to sit there and to allow the person who's promised to take me from your her job. It's not my job to take me there.
It's their job to take me there. And that's what's going on in this text. The people of God are going, how are we going to get us from here to there? And God's going, that's my
job.
In fact, I already told you I would do it. Like looking at the beginning of this chapter, this is what God said at the very beginning of it in verse one. It said this, the Lord said to Moses, sends some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites.
He didn't say you need to take a vote and decide whether or not you should overtake the land. He's not saying spy it out and determine whether or not you think you'll be able to overtake it. He says I'm going to give you this land.
You're not going to defeat them. I am. But then the spies go in and they come back and ten of them say, but guys, the Canaanites live there and the Hittites live there and the Jebusites live there.
And I think God's going, yeah, I already told you that they did. Because take a look at what God promised to them when he promised the promised land in Exodus chapter three. And this is what he said, and I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt and into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.
He said I think what God's doing is he's looking at them and he's going, hey spies, all you've done on your super secret mission is confirm what I already told you. You came back saying it's a land flowing with milk and honey. I already told you that.
You came back saying that Hittites, Jebusites, and Perizzites live there. Yeah, I already told you that. But now they say we won't be able to overtake this land and God's going, no, no, no, no, buddy.
I already told you that you would. And here's where Caleb's perspective differed from the other ten. He made a decision to look at God's promise rather than his problem.
He decided that he was going to trust what God said rather than what he saw. And Caleb here goes, I see the same problems that you guys do. I'm not rejecting those problems.
I'm not ignoring those problems. The only difference though is I'm not ignoring my God because I know that God has said he's going to give us the land. And I see all the reasons why he's not going to be able to.
But here's all I know. If God said it, then I'm going to choose to believe it. And that's what faith is.
Faith is simply believing that God is telling the truth. And that's how Caleb got it right. So, there are two ways of looking at this problem.
The first is we are really, really small. They are really, really big. Therefore, we're going
to lose.
And the second is we are really, really small. They are really, really big. Therefore, I can't wait to see what God does.
I'm going to sit back and watch because this doesn't make sense to me. But if he said it, I'm going to believe it. So, point number one, first thing we can learn here is who you trust changes how you perceive your problem.
Flipping over to chapter 14, we just finished reading chapter 13. Let's see what happens next. The people of God have just received a bad report from the majority and a good report from the minority.
What are they going to believe? This is what happens next, verse 14. Chapter 14, verse 1. That night, all the members of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. All the Israelites grumbled against Aaron and Moses, and the whole assembly said to them, if only we had died in Egypt or in this wilderness.
Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taking this plunder. Wouldn't it be better for us to go back to Egypt? And they said to each other, we should choose a leader and go back to Egypt. Then Moses and Aaron fell face down in front of the whole Israelite assembly gathered there.
Joshua, son of Nun and Caleb, son of Jafuna, who were among those who would explore the land, tore their clothes. And that day, that was a sign of grieving. And they said to the entire Israelite assembly, the land we pass through and explored is exceedingly good.
If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land. Now, if you notice, the other 10's report makes no mention of God. Here, Caleb and Joshua, they say, no, we believe that God will lead us into a land flowing with milk and honey, and he will give it to us.
Only, do not rebel against the Lord, and do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will devour them. Their protection is gone. But the Lord is with us.
Do not be afraid of them. But the whole assembly talked about stoning them, which that sounds extreme, but here's what's going on here. They're going, we're going to kill you before you kill us.
Because if we listen to you, if we follow your instructions, we're going to die. So we're going to put you to death before you put us to death. Then this happened next.
Then the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the Israelites, and the Lord appears, and he's angry with the people. And his response to them is, how long until you trust me? What else do I need to do for you to trust me? He's going to
Israelites, what do I need to do? Remember back in Egypt, remember when you thought you were going to die there in slavery? Remember when I made a way when there was no way, remember that? Or remember when you were on the edge of the sea? Remember that? Remember when you thought you were going to die? Remember when I made a way when there was no way? You remember that? Or remember when you were in the wilderness, So you thought you were gonna die because you had no food. But guess what? Food's an easy thing for me to provide.
Remember when I made a way when there was no way? Don't you remember all those times when I came through? What else do I need to do for you to trust me? I think God might be asking you the same thing tonight. Hey, remember what I did for you in middle school? Remember what I did for you in high school? Remember what I did for you freshman year at UT? What else do I need to do for you to trust me? And here in this text, he says that this time their disbelief is deserving of punishment. And skipping ahead to verse 19, Moses goes to God and said, in accordance with your great love, forgive the sins of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.
The Lord replied, I have forgiven them, as you asked. Nevertheless, as surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the Lord fills the whole earth, not one of those who saw my glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, but who disobeyed me and tested me 10 times. Not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their ancestors.
No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see you. And since they disbelieved God, they were sentenced to wander in the desert for 40 years. And not a single person who disbelieved God got to see the power of God as he brought them into the promised land.
This is the second thing we can learn from this text. Point number two, disbelief will make you miss out on what God can do. Disbelief will make you miss out on what God can do.
You see, if they would have just believed, they would have gotten to see the promised land. But since they didn't, they spent the rest of their life wandering in the desert because their disbelief had consequences. Now, if we're going to learn everything we possibly can about this text and apply it to our life, like, if we're going to learn all we can about the character of God and apply it to our life, I think we can come to the conclusion that disbelief has consequences.
Like, failing to trust God can make you miss out on what God can do in and through your life. Now, I want to make it clear that not every consequence in your life is a result of disbelief. I'm not saying that, but I am saying that disbelief has consequences because disbelief will make you miss out on what God can do.
And here, in this story, their consequence as a result of their disbelief was that he sentenced them to wander in the desert for 40 years until they died. You ever wonder why? Like, if you've heard this story before, if you know the story of scripture, and maybe you don't, but maybe you've heard this, it's like, yeah, the Israelites, they wandered in the desert for 40 years. You ever wonder why? Like, it seems really harsh.
In just one moment, they go, hey, I'm not really sure that God can do it. So God says, okay, you're going to wander in the desert and die in this desert 40 years later. That seems like a harsh punishment.
Why did God do that? It's because it's exactly what they asked for. Well, like, we actually just read this, but let me read it again so you can catch it. Chapter 14, verse 2. All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, if only we had died in Egypt or in this wilderness.
So God goes, I'm going to give you a promised land. And they go, we don't want to go into the promised land. We want to go back to dying Egypt or we want to die in this wilderness.
And God's going, well, I'm surely not sending you back there. So if you want to die here, I'll let you die here. And he gave them what they asked for.
Now, why is this what they asked for? Well, like, why did they ask God for the wilderness? Because the wilderness was safe. That the wilderness was what they knew. And what they knew was good enough.
Let me ask you a question. Is your life right now good enough? If it's just good enough for you? I don't know about you, but I know that for me, I serve a God not of the good enough, but a God who can do abundantly more than all we could possibly ask or imagine. And so often, we just ask him for what's safe.
We ask him for the wilderness. Now, before we move on, I want to point out a few things here that are really important. First is that, well, not only did these 10 men miss out on what God could do, not only did these 10 men miss out on the Promised Land, but they came back with a fear-filled report.
They came back with a disbelieving report. And you know what happened? That disbelief was contagious. That fear like got onto the people of God.
And as they brought this disbelief back, this disbelief was received by the people of God. And not only did these 10 men miss out on what God could do, they caused a lot of other people to miss out on what God could do because their disbelief was contagious. Now, this has two implications in your life.
The first is this, who you hang out with matters. Who you hang out with really matters
because who you hang out with, they're either their belief or their disbelief is likely rubbing off on you. In fact, not likely.
It is almost certainly rubbing off on you. Just like in this text, the disbelief of these 10 men was rubbing off on the rest of the people of God. If the people in your life are like the critical, cynical, disbelieving, complaining people, I just want you to know this.
That's contagious. That's rubbing off on you. And that will cause you to miss out on what God can do through your life.
Now, if you're cool with that, keep hanging out with the 10. Like you stay with the 10. But I know that for me, I want to be found with the two.
Like I want to be found with the people of God who believe in God that he can do more, that he will do more because I want to see everything that God can do in and through my life. So the first implication is this, who you hang out with matters. The second is, you're not just receiving fear or faith.
You are giving off fear or faith. So what are you giving off? Are you giving off belief or disbelief to the people in your life? As I was writing this sermon, I was convicted of a time that happens every single time in my house. So every single day, my family would sit at the dinner table and we're about to eat.
It's my wife, me, and we've got two little girls, a three-year-old and a 10-month-old. And every day, it's just the same routine. We sit down to eat, food's on the table, and I always pray, and I say something like this, God, thank you so much for this meal that you provided.
We are so grateful. God, I just ask you to keep our family safe. And yeah, God, thank you for today.
And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. And as I was thinking about that prayer, I realized that is so similar to what the Israelites ask God.
God, would you just keep us safe? Would you just keep us here in what we know, where nothing feels too risky, where nothing feels dangerous, would you just keep us safe? And I realized that I'm passing on to my two daughters a weak faith, like a fear-filled faith, a disbelieving faith. God, just keep our family safe. And I don't want to pass on fear to my daughters.
I want to pass on faith to my daughters. So my question is, what are you passing on to the people in your life? Let's just imagine that you get together with the people in your life who know God. And if you don't have people in your life who know God, just imagine that you gather up for dinner tomorrow night and they ask you to pray.
And right before the dinner, as you pray, you pray something like this. You just go, hey, God, thank you so much for today. Yeah, God, we're so grateful, and God, we ask that you keep us safe, and it's really hard for us to be Christians at UT.
It's a really hard environment, so God, it just has to allow us to graduate somehow still following you, and God, you know, again, it's hard to follow Jesus on the weekend, so I pray that we wouldn't have sex this weekend or get drunk this weekend, and yeah, we pray all this in Jesus' name, amen. Now imagine if that's your prayer, but what if this was your prayer? What if you sit down with your friends who know God and you pray something like this? God, we are just so grateful because we believe that the tomb is still empty. We believe that death no longer reigns because Jesus came, lived, and died, and rose again, so God, we ask you tonight, in fact, we plead with you tonight, that you would allow us to fall so deeply in love with you, that we would fall so deeply in love with the word of God so that we could be so inspired by the Spirit of God that you would use us, that you just use our little crew to go out and save every single student on the UT campus.
God, I pray that the University of Texas would be the capital of collegiate Christianity in this country, that Austin, Texas would be marked by revival, and that we would be used by you to kick Satan in the teeth so that sin would not reign here, but that life would reign here, and that we would see dead people come to life, lost people be found, and hurting people be healed. God, we believe you can do that, and we ask that you would, and we pray all this in Jesus' name, amen. Do you sense the difference between those two prayers? Why do we pray this? It's so lame.
Like, some of you, maybe you grow up in church and you're like, I'm bored by Christianity, because that's boring, and that's not what God asks you to do, like, this is what the prayer of the 10 sounds like. This is what the prayer of the two sounds like. My ask to you is, would you pray like the two? Would you be found like Caleb and Joshua saying, no, I believe God can do more? In fact, I want to say things that sound so ridiculous, because I believe I've got a ridiculously powerful God.
So my question is, are you with the 10, or are you with the two? And if you're with the 10, move over. Move over, and let's ask God to do some big things in Austin, Texas, because we've got a big God. So, when people hear you talk about God and talk to God, are you passing along fear, or are you passing along faith? And this is point number two, second thing you can learn, disbelief will make you miss out on what God can do.
And we're going to finish out the passage by rereading verse 23, and then we're going to read verse 24. And God says this about the people who didn't trust Him. Verse 23, not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their ancestors.
No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it. But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will enter it. And you see, since he was filled with a different spirit, he had a different experience.
Since he had a different faith, he had a different life. And this is point number three, third thing we can learn, a different spirit brings different results. And here's what I want you to know, and you already know this.
Most people will grumble. Most people are going to complain. Most people are going to disbelieve.
And most people are going to miss out on what God can do through their life. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be most people. I want to be filled with a different spirit.
I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit because I want to live a different life. And I want to see different things. Because a different spirit leads to different results.
And here, since Caleb believed that God would do it, he got to see God do it. Because a different spirit brings different results. Now, let me give you an example of this.
I could give you a number of examples, but there's a pastor in Atlanta, Georgia. He goes by the name of Louis Giglio, and he started something called Passion Conference. And here's a picture of it from this last year.
They rented out the Atlanta Falcon Stadium. There's 65,000 college students there because Gen Z loves Jesus. I know you've heard otherwise, but there's revival happening on college campuses all over the country.
And here's what it looked like last year, but it didn't always look like this. Like it's grown every single year, and they didn't always rent out the Atlanta Falcons football stadium. And a few years back, I was hearing them talk about a story of how they rented out the Falcon Stadium, but like two months before, it wasn't even close to full.
Like they looked at the ticket sales, and it looked like they had bitten off more than they can chew, and it looked like there was just going to be whole sections that were completely empty. So they had a staff meeting, again about two weeks, two months before the event, and he just walked into that meeting, and he told his staff, I want to make sure that when I walk into Mercedes-Benz Stadium and I see every single seat full, I don't say, I can't believe God did it. Instead, I want to believe in such a way, and I want to pray in such a way now that when I walk into Mercedes-Benz Stadium in a couple months, I look at every seat full and I go, of course God did it, because I believed he could, because I knew that he could, of course God did it.
And Revive, here's what I want you to know. There are two different types of believers in Jesus. You see, there's going to be times in your life when God makes a way, when God does something miraculous, and there's going to be a group of Christians that says, I can't believe God did it.
And then there's going to be another group of Christians, a smaller group of Christians that say, of course he did it, because I believed he could, because I knew he could, because I've been asking him to, of course he did it. Now, I want to be clear, I'm not saying if you just believe more, you're going to get everything you could possibly desire. I'm not saying like, if you have big faith, you're going to walk out of here with a boyfriend or a girlfriend.
Not what I'm communicating. Here's what I am communicating though. As believers in Jesus, we have reason for big belief.
We have reason for great hope, and I want to tell you why. It's because we've received a better report than the people of God did in Numbers chapter 13 and 14. And let me tell you about it.
I want to tell you about it by looking at a passage that seems like it's not that big of a deal. Because at the beginning of Numbers chapter 13, as I said, Moses picked 12 men from each of the 12 tribes from the tribe of Judah, and he sent these 12 spies into the Promised Land. And I want you to see what it says about Caleb.
In Numbers chapter 13, verse 6, here's what it says. It seems like it's not a big deal. From the tribe of Judah, Caleb, son of Jephana.
From the tribe of Judah, Caleb, son of Jephana. Why is that a big deal? In Numbers chapter 13, the people of God feared death. So, Moses picked a man.
He picked a man from the tribe of Judah. He picked a man by the name of Caleb, and he sent Caleb in to the heart of enemy territory. He sent him in as a spy, and he said, survey the land.
Look at the enemy. See if we can win. So, this man Caleb from the tribe of Judah went into the heart of enemy territory, and he surveyed the land.
He surveyed the enemy. And he came to a conclusion, and he brought that conclusion back to the people of God. And this man from the tribe of Judah said, you need not fear death, for our God will give us the victory later in Scripture.
Once again, the people of God feared death. This time, God, not Moses, picked a man from the line of the tribe of Judah, and he too sent him into the heart of enemy territory. He didn't just pick any man though.
He picked what Revelation says was the lion of the tribe of Judah. He picked a man that we know by the name of Jesus, and he sent him into the heart of enemy territory. But he didn't send him in as a spy.
He didn't send him in to survey. He sent him in to slay the enemy. And he went in, and he lived a perfect life.
And he died on the cross. He took our enemy head on, and then he was put in a tomb, and then three days later, he rose from the dead, and he came back from death with a report for the people of God. And he said, you need not fear death, for death has been destroyed.
You need not fear judgment, because your sins have been forgiven. And this man from the tribe of Judah has said, you need not fear that snake from Genesis chapter three, who was trying to take you out, because I just stomped on his head. You see, you need not fear anything, for I am alive, and I'm with you, and I'm for you.
You, too, my question to you tonight is, what report are you going to believe? Are you going to believe the report of fear, and anxiety, and panic that this whole world is believing? That many in the church are believing? Or are you going to believe the report from the lion of Judah, who said, you need not fear, because the grave's still empty, and I'm still alive, and I'm on the move. Who are you going to believe? And which report are you going to trust? And I just want you to know that what report you trust will change the way you view your life, and it will change the way you live your life. And I don't know about you, but I know that for me, I don't want to be found with the ten.
I want to be found with the two. And I would, I just know that at the end of my life, I don't want it to be said of me that I believed God for too little. It said I would much rather die and go be with Jesus, and see him face to face, and have him say, you know, Nate, you kind of believe for too much down there.
I would much rather lean in that direction, because I would much rather believe for things, and pray for things that make me look like a fool in front of you, than believe for things and pray for things that make me look like a fool in front of him. So here's how I want us to close this message. I want us to spend some time in prayer, and I want us to do two things.
I want us to go to God in a repentant spirit, and just repent of all the ways and all the times in which we have not believed God in the ways in which we should. And then secondly, I want us to just go to him and ask him, hey, what's something that I should be believing for in my life that I'm not? What's one thing that I should be praying for in my life that I'm not praying for? What's something that seems too far off? Maybe it's saving that friend. Maybe it's a reconciled relationship with your dad.
Maybe it's that your mom would be freed from alcoholism. Maybe it's that you'd be freed from alcoholism. I don't know what it is for you, and I'd rather have the Holy Spirit bring it to mind than have me bring it to mind.
But that's what we're going to do right now. Let's go to him in prayer, and let's do those two things. God, we just come before you tonight.
Humbled and repentant. And God, we just acknowledge that every single one of us, myself included, have not believed you in the ways in which we should. We are a funny people that we can say things like, yeah, I believe that Jesus rose from the dead, but I don't think he can do that smaller thing.
What a ridiculous thing for us to believe. So, Father, we repent in which we have been found with the 10 instead of the two. And God, I do pray for every single person here in the room tonight that your Holy Spirit now would just bring something to mind that you would ask them to be praying for and believing for.
Maybe it's something that they prayed for a long, long time ago, but they gave up a long, long time ago. Maybe it's something that they've never even prayed because it just seems too big. We've got to pray that every single person here would have something.
Now, God, we come before you, the God who can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. And we ask that you would do that thing tonight. We ask that you bring salvation tonight.
We ask that you bring healing tonight. We ask that you bring reconciliation tonight. We ask that you provide financially tonight.
Whatever that thing is, I pray that you would do it tonight. But even if you don't, may we still be found praying tomorrow and the next day, and the next day, and the next day. And may we be found at your door like a beggar asking for bread, saying, God, would you do it? All the while knowing that even if you don't do that thing, you've done a much more important thing.
That you sent Jesus to live and die and rise again so that we could have no fear for the rest of the rest of the rest of the rest. And anything else you do is just extra. But God, we do ask for that extra all the while knowing that we don't need anything else other than an empty tomb.
So God, thank you for the fact that we get to be in here in this room tonight to praise you, because that's what you do. We're in this room tonight to give you glory because that's what you deserve. Because of one thing and one thing only.
And it's because of the fact that Jesus is alive and with us and for us. And it's in his name that we pray. Amen.