It’s not what you see it’s how you see it.
Ashingdon 08 Feb 2008
This morning before we begin I want you to think about something.
Perhaps there is something that you have been praying about,
something that you are going through or worried about going through,
and perhaps there is a sense of worry about what it is that is before you in life and you really need God to perhaps come through on.
Now that something could be the confidence to take on the future by facing the present,
or the circumstance you find yourself in,
or the issue that you’ve got to get over,
or the challenge that you have got to overcome,
or the thing that you need to get victory in.
Maybe your thinking about one of those,
or some of those, or all of those things this morning, maybe you have been mulling these things over for a while,
or maybe your just thinking I need God to come through and be who He is.
Maybe you’re thinking He is my provider and I just need to see that.
He’s my healer, I just need to see that
Whatever the something that is bothering you, hopefully this morning what I want to try to get across is just,
just a simple message about a simple way of approaching life that,
can help you just see God is the answer in every single circumstance and at the same believe to see Him come through in it.
We can thank God for who He is,
and because of who He is,
we can confidently trust in the things that He does,
as we look at his word this morning,
I pray that each of us might be able to see ourselves in it and see what it is we can do,
what God can do, how we can position ourselves before Him, and how to take hold of every promise that is in God’s word that is ours.
The promises have all got to do with God being true to who He is, every attribute, every nature, the promises of those things will become a reality in our lives.
I am going to read from the book of Numbers,
I want to start in Numbers chapter 14 and I just want to pick a statement and then we will go back to Numbers 13 and work through.
Here is the statement from verse 24 in The New Living Translation: “But my servant Caleb has a different attitude than the others have. He has remained loyal to me, so I will bring him into the land he explored.”
A different kind of attitude, the attitude of a person, the motivation of a person, its that positioning, your attitude is one of those things, that you realise, you know that sometimes you get a bad attitude about something.
Anyone ever had a bad attitude about something? Yeah, No, I know you have.
But if you think about when you are in that moment an attitude can come out, now I’m not necessarily talking about the actions because sometimes we are very good at being good and other times we are very good at being bad as well.
Attitude is more to do with a position that you actually take in that moment that actual prompts or causes certain behavioral things.
So an attitude is not being all snotty, an attitude can be a position you take on something,
it could be the way you review something,
it could be the stance you’ve taken in life that actually has nothing to do with you
its just all got to do with a background,
an upbringing that you think a certain way so it become your attitude in life.
When we are talking in this context about the spirit of a person or their attitude its talking about that, it could almost be summarized down into this -
it’s all got to do with the way you see things.
It’s all got to do with the way you see life.
One of our big challenges as individuals is to make sure the way we see life in the right way,
we see it through the right glasses,
we take the right position,
we have the right perspective,
maybe its all got to do with our world view,
our world view could be a very small one
or our world view could be an educated one,
an informed one, an opinionated one, a large one –
its our world view, its our position that we take.
Every one of us has the challenge of taking that and really lining it up with God.
It’s interesting what it says here, Caleb has this different attitude, different to some of the others that we will talk about in a moment
but it comes together where God says Caleb has remained loyal to me, so its almost like there is this attitude that Caleb had,
the spirit of this person that he had,
that actually lined him up in a place where God looked at him and says, He has remained loyal to me.
What does it mean to remain loyal to someone?
Being loyal means despite the circumstances, despite what maybe we can’t see
despite even what we know,
despite the way we feel,
despite what we think,
despite what we want to run from
despite everything we remain in a place where our position has not changed.
Where our loyalty is not moved.
And that’s where Caleb is, he’s in a position where his position did not change with God – he remained loyal.
Now just to fast forward for the sake of time its all in the context of that, that he remained loyal despite the circumstances.
Despite perhaps what others were saying and despite even what maybe his own eyes could see he remained loyal to what he knew about God
and God described him as someone who had a different spirit, he had a different attitude to the others.
Now the others obviously didn’t as this passage of scripture goes on it says because of this he was able to go into what the promise of God was.
Because he had this loyalty to God.
Lets just take one last thought on the whole loyalty to God thing.
Loyalty to God as in,
God I’m not going to question who you are,
I’m not going to question what you can do,
I’m not going to question what you say,
I’m not going to question that.
I’m going to remain loyal to the fact that you are who you are, you do what you do,
you can do what you say,
and you do do what you say.
A loyalty to who God is, from a sense of knowing,
I just know who God is –
That is the attitude Caleb had.
I just want to quickly go through some of the scriptures that lead upto this and have a look at Caleb and what it was and how it all played out.
So if we pick it up in Numbers 13 and right at the start of Numbers 13, this is just before the people were to cross over the Jordan into the promised land, into the promise of God.
They had been led out of Egypt by Moses, they had gone through the desert and spent way too long in the desert, they had spent years there and they were supposed to have spent days there.
Now just that thought in itself,
you know growing as a Christian does not have to take a lifetime,
learning how to trust God should not take the whole of your life.
There is a point where God actually wants to bring you to,
where there is a fruitfulness about your life –
in other words where there is a sense of the place where you are,
where God can freely move through your life in the world in which you live.
That’s where God wants us to be.
We are people of the promise.
We are people of the promise of Jesus in our lives, His grace and favour working in us and through us, touching others and enabling us to make a difference in the World in which we live.
There is an element of and I could go on all morning about the promise we have in Jesus Christ, but I do not want us to focus on that,
I just want to focus on this small perspective – and we are not supposed to take a generation to do it.
Even when it comes to our church,
I spoke to a Christian friend at work the other day and he’s a guy about my age and we were dreaming and scheming about what could be done for the Lord.
And I said to him, you know what I’m nearly 40 and he said so am I – that means I’ve got a good twenty left in me, and I’m not gonna waste it,
I don’t want to get to the end of the next 20 years and say Oh well there are another 20 in front of me, because by then I will be eighty and my teeth will have fallen out.
No offense to those who are 80 and if you’ve got teeth all power to you but I rekon mine will be gone.
But the point I’m trying to make is, even as a church it should not take us a generation to make a difference in this community.
In the same way the people wandering around the desert had to learn a few things, lets learn a few things from them instead of having to learn on our own journey the long the way.
What was supposed to take days took a generation. In our own lives, personally, lets not let what is supposed to take days take a generation.
In the life of our church something that’s supposed to take days lets not let it take a generation.
Lets be the generation that actually rises up and takes God for who he is.
And maybe then, He, She, they, YOU, are the ones that will be known as having a different attitude, a different spirit.
Lets be the generation that remains loyal to who God is, in whatever we face along the way.
You with me?
Ok so here they are they are at the start, and Moses says I am going to gather together a group of people and I’m not going to give all the numbers I’m just going to talk in the context so that we can relate this to ourselves as individuals and collectively.
So Moses gathers this group of people, a handful of people, and he says what I want you to do is go into this land that God has promised and I want you to go and explore it.
I want you to go and find out what the people in the land are like,
find out how strong their fortified walls are if they are there,
find out how many of them are there,
check out if the land is like God said it would be – does the land flow with milk and honey, is it the place of God’s providence for us.
So we have these guys that go into the land and so they have to bring back some evidence that this is a good place
If you read the passage you find that they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes so large it took two men to carry it on a pole between them
they also brought back samples of pomegranate and figs,
that place was the valley of Escol and it keeps going on and talks about all of the stuff they brought back and said ‘here is the evidence the land is like God said it is’ then they go through and give a report after they have explored the land for 90 days,
so let me pick it up here at verse 27:
This was their report to Moses: “We entered the land you sent us to explore, and it is indeed a bountiful country—a land flowing with milk and honey. Here is the kind of fruit it produces. 28 But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak! 29 The Amalekites live in the Negev, and the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country. The Canaanites live along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and along the Jordan Valley.”
30 But Caleb tried to quiet the people as they stood before Moses. “Let’s go at once to take the land,” he said. “We can certainly conquer it!”
31 But the other men who had explored the land with him disagreed. “We can’t go up against them! They are stronger than we are!” 32 So they spread this bad report about the land among the Israelites: “The land we traveled through and explored will devour anyone who goes to live there. All the people we saw were huge. 33 We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!”
Numbers 14:1 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?
THEY HAD NOT EVEN GOT THERE!,
here is this load of people,
this load of people who start freaking out because a handful of people come back with a report that says there are giants out there,
there are circumstances out there,
there is no way known that we could handle it, those circumstances are so big that it made us feel so small and those giants viewed us as small people.
So they are bringing this report but the funny thing is about this report is the effect that it had on everybody else.
Everybody else start freaking out and then what did they do?
OH! WHY DID THE LORD BRING US TO THIS PLACE TO DIE.
They had not crossed the line yet, they were still in safety, but they are convinced that it is all going to fall apart,
then they say – we should have just died in the wilderness.
The whole community – the whole nation of people freaked out because there was one small handful of people that brought a bad report,
maybe we can put it this way
they all freaked out because they heard how someone else perceived the circumstances
they were going to have to face,
and convinced them to think a certain way
so they started to see the circumstances another way
they started to see themselves differently because they saw the circumstances differently
and then the circumstances started beating them up.
You see it?
So then what happens is it goes on a little bit further.
Verse 5 and 6 Numbers 14:5-7
Then Moses and Aaron fell face down on the ground before the whole community of Israel. 6 Two of the men who had explored the land, Joshua and Caleb, tore their clothing.
Right so here weve got this guy Joshua and Caleb – the guy with the different attitude ok, there is this sense about them that’s like ‘hhmmmhh’ they tore their clothing – I can imagine them thinking
‘How stupid are you people?
how do we sort this out?
Can’t you just… you’ve got it all wrong!
There is a sense of indignation about them which was very similar to the response of the other spies who came back and said,
‘No No we can’t go into the land’
Yeah, the promise of God is there ,
yeah I know what God’s word says,
I know God’s word says this and this and this but you’ve just got to look at the circumstances -
don’t be stupid, don’t be ridiculous,
just because there are big grapes there just like God said – it does not mean he is going to protect us like he said.
Essentially what they were doing was posing all of these questions about God’s ability to work with what he said he will do.
Do you get what I’m saying?
So the other two they, ripped their clothes and this is what they said:
They said to all the people of Israel, “The land we traveled through and explored is a wonderful land! 8 And if the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us safely into that land and give it to us. It is a rich land flowing with milk and honey. 9 Do not rebel against the Lord, and don’t be afraid of the people of the land. They are only helpless prey to us! They have no protection, but the Lord is with us! Don’t be afraid of them!”
BUT THE LORD IS WITH US, DO NOT BE AFRAID!
Both of them had a BUT.
One of them was you know what – yes it’s true, it’s true the land is how God said it was – but at the same time theres a but,
but the giants, yeah I know what the bible says
but you don’t know my circumstances, do you.
Yeah I know what the bible says I can believe about God when it comes to healing,
I know what the bible says when it comes to what the bible says about God and his provision.
I know what the bible says, but, BUT.
But you don’t know my circumstances , you’ve got no idea what that’s like, if you were me it would be different, you would’nt be saying that.
That’s not what these people said but its essentially what they meant – their BUT was all about their circumstances.
Caleb’s But was all about his God,
But God is there. God can protect me.
These two saw exactly the same thing –
they saw the promise of God and they saw the circumstance –
let me put it this way,
they saw the promise of God in the circumstance.
The difference was they did not allow the circumstance to take their eyes off of the promise of God
they did not dismiss the promise of God
they saw themselves as incapable,
they saw themselves as I can’t do that on my own, there is no way known I can take on those giants
But Caleb he saw the promise of God in the circumstances he saw the answer in his God.
Caleb says ‘ yeah. Yeah, there is a promise and there is a circumstance and there is a God, and because God is there, we can do this,
because he is with me I can do this.
I just think of all the scriptures I could start talking about, the bible says, the bible actually makes statements about you.
It says that you are an overcomer, the bible says about you, that you are victorious, the bible says about you that you are a conqueror – that’s just some of the things the bible says about you.
Why would it say that, because in life you need to take the promise of God and see it work in the circumstances
If your not careful you will spend way too much of your life hoping the circumstances are going to change so that the promise of God will become a reality.
They won’t that’s not how it works
See what you have got to do is find God in the circumstance, find God as your source of strength.
The only reason the bible calls you a victorious person is because with God’s Strength in your life you can get victory over things. Which is part of the promise of God.
With God’s strength in your life you can conquer things which is part of the promise of God.
With God’s strength in your life he calls you an overcomer because with him you can overcome circumstances.
See, the bible would not call you an overcomer if there was not things to overcome,
it would not call you victorious if there were not things to get victory over, it would not call you a conqueror if there were not things to defeat.
Which means that the circumstances are real – they were real to Caleb they were real to the other spies – the other spies negative report freaked out everybody.
We live in a world today where if you sit down and read too many newspapers or listen to the news you can easily feel distressed. Or too much other stuff that talks about the circumstances but never gives an answer – well not the answer I’m talking about – talk about maybe how things should be, or could be but But BUT!
And there is all sorts of anxiety and fear in peoples lives but see you and I – have got something we can live our lives with –
we can look at all the circumstances in life that face us today from the intricacies of our own personal turmoil inside to the economies of the world,
to the troubles of the nations of the world,
there are promises of God,
of God’s goodness of God working in everyone of those, but there is a new but that has got to come on our lips and the but is
BUT GOD IS THERE!
BUT GOD CAN GIVE ME THE STRENGTH!
See for Joshua and Caleb and here is the last thought , I’ve said all of this just to drop this into your head
It’s actually got nothing to do with what you see, now that does not mean,
close your eyes and pretend it does not exist, because if it’s a bus it will run over you and circumstances have the habit of doing that
So its not what you see that matters its all got to do with How you see it .
My question to you is How do you see the circumstance?
Unemployment is God’s opportunity to provide –
or is God’s opportunity to provide only when you get a job.
I could go on giving examples.
Whatever it is that is causing fear or anxiety in your life and you feel like your out of control – start to see it differently, cause God is on your side.
God is with you.
Every one of the promises of God is Yes and Amen in Jesus Christ. And if you are in Jesus Christ, by in Him I mean that you have put your faith in Him,
in who he is in what he has done, on your behalf you have full access to the presence of God,
You have full access to God and are able to stand as Caleb stood and say I do know what God says about my circumstances,
and I do know what my circumstances are saying and I do know what the economies of the world and the systems of the world are,
and the challenges of the world that I live in.
I do know what they say, but you know what,
I’ve got a God that I can see working.
BUT God is for us and together we can overcome, But God is for you and can get victory,
But God is for you and you can conquer whatever it is that you are facing in your life today.
And you know what it does not have to take a lifetime to take God at his word.
Joshua and Caleb, Caleb a man with a different attitude to life – what was his attitude –
But God is for us.
He just viewed every single situation of life and his position was But God is for me, God is for me.
I take on the giant God is for me,
I walk through that valley God is for me,
everything is falling down around me –
God is for me – He is for me.
He is everything I need.
It’s not what you see but how you see it.
Its God with you in the circumstances – its upto you.
Let me encourage you to say this morning
I’m going to take my life journey from this day forward and say its not what I’m seeing it’s all got to do with how I’m seeing it.
God is for me.
Every giant you overcome is going to teach you something about life
its going to put strength inside of you
its going to put tenacity inside of you
its going to put something inside of you
As you go through life and you take on everything that comes your way know that God is for you
Know that the promises of god are Yes and Amen in Christ Jesus for you.
Amen?
Let me ask the question again that I started with – is there something you really need God to come through on?
Maybe you said God get me out of this circumstance –
now you might have changed that to God give me the strength to get through this circumstance.
God is for you not against you How are you seeing the world you live in today?
God is for you
Do you believe that?
Let me pray for you if your facing situations or circumstances,
maybe your just freaked out by what’s going on in the world right now,
just reach out to God right now,
and as we pray believe that God is the God of miracles.
Reach out to God right now and let him give you the strength.
