Numbers 13:25-14:10a
To Follow or Fear
Woodlawn Baptist Church
November 4, 2007
I live in fear. Do you? Though most of you’d never know it, I fear a lot of things. I am afraid of deep water. I am afraid of needles. I fear growing old in this body. Some of you are twice my age and get around better than me. I fear losing what mind I have. I want to think and communicate clearly right up to the day I die. I fear criticism – it drives my perfectionism and a lot of sleepless nights. I fear failure. I say numbers don’t matter to me, but low attendance and offerings and souls saved sound like failure to me. I fear financial failure, pastoral failure, associational failure, and sometimes moral failure. I fear rejection. I want to be liked. It keeps me from saying no to some people and yes to others who are important to me. I fear the unknown. I’m anal that way. I fear messing up at raising my kids. I fear intimacy. I fear that I might not be prepared for retirement. Now I fear not being able to make my mortgage. And to add to it, although I pastor and believe we serve the God of no limitations, I fear that I will miss what great things God has in store for me because of my little, shortsighted thinking.
Are you starting to get the picture? Do you share any of those fears? I suspect that you do. Some of you are afraid of those same things. Some of you fear growing old alone, so you make choices to be with people who aren’t good for you just to have someone. You’re afraid of confrontation, so you put up with a bad job situation when you know you don’t have to. Cancer makes you afraid. You may be afraid of dying, or of your spouse dying. Afraid that after all your work your kids will still make the wrong choices. Afraid that life’s going to pass you by, that you’re going to miss that shot at greatness or fame, afraid that your parents are holding you back, afraid that you’re wasting your life. We ask ourselves a million questions: Am I marrying the right person? Can I really succeed in this venture? What if I screw this up?
Our church can be gripped with fear. We fail to practice discipline because we’re afraid someone might leave. Afraid to try something because we’ve not done it before. Afraid to let something go because we’ve grown comfortable with it, or because it feels too much like we’re losing our heritage. Churches can be afraid to follow God for fear of the unknown, what it might cost, or what it might require. You may have passed up a ministry opportunity because you’re afraid. Afraid the kids won’t respond to you. You may be afraid of speaking in public. Afraid you don’t have anything worth saying. Afraid you don’t have what it takes to do a job. Afraid of falling and losing face.
Our culture thrives on the thrill, anxiety, heart-stopping action, living on the edge. It profits from our fears while we all too often live enslaved to them: at work, at home, in your private life. We’re consumed with safety. Have you noticed it? Some of it is good. We buckle up behind our airbags and safety cages. We put our baby bed rails closer together. The high school track is rubber now instead of rock. We’re insured to the hilt, we’ve got answers ready and waiting in case the preacher asks us to volunteer for a ministry, and we fight tooth and nail against what is slightly unfamiliar or uncomfortable.
Today I want you to know that you’re not alone. Whether we’d admit it or not this room is full of people who live with our silent, private fears, whatever those fears might be. From the very beginning fear has dominated people’s lives, to their own detriment, but I also want you to know that God never intended for us to live that way.
Do you remember the story in the Bible about God trying to lead the people of Israel into the Promised Land? The book of Exodus tells us the story of God’s delivering Israel from Egypt and their journey to Canaan. He told them over and over He was going to give them that land: a land flowing with milk and honey. It’s a beautiful piece of real estate that has been reserved just for you. I’m going to kill your enemies, drive out all the land squatters, bless you in every way, and all you have to do is move in and take the land.
Numbers 13 tells us how God instructed Moses to send 12 spies into the land to search it out, explore it, see if it wasn’t all He had promised. And He repeated the promise. I’m giving you the land, the key word being GIVING. So they did. Those twelve representatives went, and they explored. We’re going to read Numbers 13:25-33 and see what happened as a result.
READ Numbers 13:25-14:10a (explore and explain along the way)
Now I want to make 11 observations about fear from this passage.
1. Fear always has a “but.”
2. Fear looks for the obstacles
3. Fear focuses on the difficulties
4. Fear spreads like wildfire
5. Fear doesn’t listen to reason
6. Fear demoralizes and immobilizes us
7. Fear says “if only”
8. Fear says “we can’t”
9. Fear longs for the comfort of yesterday
10. Fear will cause us to act foolishly
11. Fear of this sort is offensive to God
I’d like you to look with me at John 10. In John 10:10, Jesus said that He came to give us abundant life. Just like God marvelously delivered Israel from Egyptian bondage, Jesus has delivered us from our slavery to sin. He gave us life, but He wants us to have abundant life. I want you to notice that the abundant life Jesus is speaking of here is found in the context of a personal trust relationship with God: the relationship between a shepherd and his sheep. When the sheep know the shepherd, they trust him, and when the trust him, they are absolutely at ease to follow him. You’ll never see a shepherd lead his flock out to pasture and hear the sheep say, “Woa! We can’t go to that pasture! The hill is too steep. The grass is slippery. There might be wolves over there. We can’t possibly eat all that grass. Let’s stone this stupid shepherd and get a new one!” No – sheep simply trust and follow.
Here’s what I want you to hear today, whether you’re a 10 year-old kid facing 5th grade peer-pressure, a high-school teen so afraid of rejection that you’re doing what God doesn’t want you doing, an over-controlling parent afraid of failure, a church member who’s favorite words are “but, if only, and we can’t.” Here’s what I want you to hear today: God never intended for us to operate and live and work and relate in fear mode.
There’s an abundant life out there that is ours for the taking. Spy it out. Explore what God is trying to give you. But as you listen to the naysayers and the people with the biggest buts, remember that God never intended for us to operate and live and work and relate out of fear.
Your marriage will never last if you’re always worried about infidelity. You’ll never enjoy peace if you fear him or her leaving you. God never intended marriages to work that way.
School is a tough place to live out your faith. You may be afraid the kids won’t like you, afraid they’ll make fun of you, afraid you don’t really fit in. What are your fears causing you to give up and give in to? What are your fears costing you? God never intended His people to live in fear like that.
Some of you will go out of here today knowing God would have you share your life with someone. Will your fears of getting hurt or used stop you? You know God wants you to relax and rest. Will you allow your fears of criticism keep you running?
I want you to bow your heads for just a moment and ask yourself this question: what is one thing in my life that fear is keeping me from enjoying the abundance of life God promised me? Just one thing? What is one relationship that fear is destroying? Fear of losing; fear of messing up; fear of not being loved; fear of not being accepted? Keep your head bowed and answer these:
• Does your fear always have a but? You’d be at ease, but…You’d be successful, but…
• Have you been looking at the obstacles in your way?
• Focusing on the difficulties
• What relationships at home and work and church are being caught up in the wildfire
• Is your fear preventing you from listening to reason
• Do you feel demoralized and immobilized
• Have you been saying? “if only”
• Are your unintentional favorite words, “I can’t”
• Are you longing for the comfort of yesterday
• Are you making decisions impulsively or even foolishly
• Are you aware that your fears may be offensive to God
God never intended for you to live and operate out of fear. That’s why Jesus could say His sheep hear His voice and follow Him. Israel didn’t know that voice. God spoke to them words of victory and promised them a land of abundance, but they didn’t follow. They cratered to their fears. And they died.
God never intended it to be that way.
I wonder how the Old Testament story would be different had Israel rallied around Joshua and Caleb that day long ago…how it would be different had they remembered God had not only promised them the land, but had also promised to GIVE it to them. There would be no 40 wasted years of wandering, no unnecessary deaths, no bitterness from Moses, and perhaps no Canaanites to deal with in later years. Their whole story would be different. Of course we’ll never know. There’s no changing what they did.
How would the New Testament story be different had Paul given in to his fears? What if Peter and John decided they were afraid of the persecution? Would we even know about Jesus today?
What about you? Your marriage? Your job? What about that relationship you’re in? What about our church? How might our futures be different if fear WASN’T a factor? If we simply trusted the Shepherd? That’s a future we don’t have to wonder about, because it’s still ours to write. Today the Shepherd is speaking to you to hear His voice, and this is what it’s telling you – His perfect love can drive out all your fears. Will you hear that voice and follow Him today?
