Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

How are we doing, ACC? Are we excited? You’d better believe it.

The past two weeks have been absolutely amazing as we have explored the possibility of a new facility for our church. As we’ve been saying all along, we don’t know if this is God’s will for us or not. But we’re sure going to find out.

I said this a couple of weeks ago and I want to reiterate it today. If we do what God has called us to do for the reason God has called us to do it, we cannot fail.

And that’s what we’re passionately and prayerfully seeking. God, reveal your will to us. God, give us courage to follow your will.

However this works out, it’s going to be amazing because when you follow God’s will, amazing things happen.

Let’s pray and then we’ll get into our message today.

This is the second week of our series called Umbrellas. In this series, we’re talking about attitudes and actions in our lives that block God’s blessing.

In the book of Ezekiel, God says, “I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing.” (Ezekiel 34:26b, NIV)

God’s desire has always been to rain down blessings on His people. But so many times when those showers come, we don’t experience them because we’re under an umbrella.

Just like a physical umbrella blocks the rain, these spiritual umbrellas block the showers of God’s blessing.

Last week we talked about the umbrella of pride. If we have a prideful heart, we will not experience God’s blessing in our lives. Pride acts as an umbrella that blocks the blessing.

Today, we’re talking about a second umbrella. The umbrella of fear.

Since we’re talking about fear, I decided to play a little game. Since you’ve heard from your entire church staff today, let’s see how well you know them. We’re going to see if you can match the staff member to their phobia.

Which staff member is scared to wasps?

Brian.

Which one of your staff is afraid to swim in water with our creatures in it, like a lake or the ocean?

Josh.

Which member of our staff is afraid of escalators?

Marie.

Which, of course, leaves the last one. Which staff member is afraid of dentists?

That would be me.

Now, even though we’re having some fun with this, here’s the thing…there’s nothing funny about real fear. Real fear is demoralizing. Real fear is paralyzing. And worst of all, real fear is an umbrella that blocks God’s blessing. If you live in fear, you are cutting yourself off from the work of God in your life.

We’re going to be in the Old Testament book of Numbers today.

Let me set the scene for you before we get into our text. God has rescued His people from slavery in Egypt. Through a series of miracles, culminating with the parting of the Red Sea, God brought His people out of slavery. It was unbelievable.

And now, His people are right on the cusp of entering into the land of Canaan. The land that God promised to give them. The Promised Land.

God tells Moses to send some men into the land to spy it out. So twelve men were selected and they went on their reconnaissance mission.

When they came back, they laid out the details of their recon. In Numbers 13, starting in verse 26, the Bible says, “They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is 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.” (Numbers 13:26-29, NIV)

The told everyone, “This is land is as advertised. It is awesome. It is absolutely unbelievable. It would be amazing if we could all just move in tomorrow…but we can’t. You should see the people who live there. Huge armies. Fortified cities. Some of these people are giants. We simply can’t defeat them, so we just need to call the whole thing off.”

But now, don’t get the idea that all of the spies were saying these things. Twelve men went to spy out the land. Ten of them came back and said, “No way. No how. We can’t take this land. Just forget the whole thing.”

But the other two, Joshua and Caleb, stood in opposition to the ten.

Look at the contrast in the next two verses. “Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”

But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” (Numbers 13:30-31, NIV)

This is as diametrically opposite as you can get. And really it comes down to a simple difference in wording. But this small difference in wording really changed everything.

Caleb said, “We can.” The other spies said, “We can’t.”

Caleb said, “We can do this.” The others said, “There’s no way. We can’t do this.”

How did that happen? They all went on the same mission. They saw the same things. They had the exact same information.

The difference wasn’t the facts. The difference was their faith. They all had the same facts. But the difference came down to their faith.

And that becomes even more evident as the story continues to develop.

The negative spies started to spread the word among the people. Because that’s what negative people do. They enjoy their negativity so much that they want to spread it around.

So they start telling the people about all the risks and the dangers. They tell them that some of the people are so big, that they felt like grasshoppers next to them. They actually said that.

These spies get the rest of the Israelites whipped up into a frenzy. They are weeping and wailing. Just absolutely losing their minds. They accuse God of setting them up to be killed. They devise a plan to go back to the good old days in Egypt. Never mind that they were in slavery. They conveniently leave that fact out. They just know that they can’t take over the promised land, and they just go nuts.

That’s when we read this in the next chapter. Numbers 14, starting in verse 5. “Then Moses and Aaron fell facedown in front of the whole Israelite assembly gathered there. Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had explored the land, tore their clothes and said to the entire Israelite assembly, “The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. If the LORD is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and 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.” (Numbers 14:5-10a, NIV)

Joshua and Caleb called them out. They called out the peoples’ fear. God had promised to give this land to the Israelites, but they were allowing their fear of the people in that land to stop them. And Joshua and Caleb called them on it.

They said, “This land is good. It is exceedingly good. And if God is with us, He will give it to us.” In other words, if we do what God has called us to do for the reason God has called us to do it, we cannot fail. Joshua and Caleb knew this was true.

So they challenged the people. “Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid of these other people. God is with us, so we will devour them.”

How did the people respond? They were ready to stone Joshua and Caleb to death.

That’s how a lot of people respond when someone challenges their fear. Instead of confronting their fear, they decide to take out the messenger.

And at this point, God has had enough. The glory of the Lord immediately shows up and God tells Moses, “That’s it. I’ve had it. After everything I’ve done, these people still don’t have faith in Me. They still don’t believe that I am bigger and more powerful than the armies they’re facing. So I’m done with them. I’m going to strike them with a plague and destroy them all.”

And Moses hit his knees, begging and pleading with God to forgive the people of their sin. That’s right. Fear is a sin.

Being fearful is not a personality trait. It’s not a quirk or an attribute. It is a sin. So much so that God was ready to destroy the Israelites because they allowed themselves to be dominated by fear instead of faith. You think God doesn’t take fear seriously? He was ready to wipe out an entire nation because of their fear.

But Moses begged God to forgive the people. He pleaded with God not to destroy the people. And after Moses’ prayer, God relented. He did not destroy the Israelites. But that doesn’t mean that there weren’t consequences.

Here’s what the Bible says, starting in verse 20. “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 ten 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 it.” (Numbers 14:20-23, NIV)

God forgave them for their sin and didn’t destroy them as He promised. He forgave their fear, but He also withdrew His blessing.

This is shows just what kind of umbrella fear really is. God was ready to shower them with blessing in this new land. But because of their fear, they cut themselves off from the blessing. They would never experience the Promised Land.

God sentenced them to wander in the wilderness for 40 years. Every person who had been dominated by fear would die without ever setting foot in the Promised Land.

There is a critical truth for our church in this story. We’re staring down some big vision. We’re talking about a new facility for our church. And that is scary stuff.

It’s scary because we would be leaving everything that is familiar. We would be taking a huge step of faith financially. It would take a lot of money and a lot of work to make this move happen.

In other words, the armies in front of us are bigger than us. They are stronger than us. And if we go it alone, we will be defeated.

But we are not alone. Do you believe that, church? We are not alone! Say that out loud with me. We are not alone!

This is where the Israelites fell into sin. They thought they would be fighting all these armies alone. They either didn’t believe that God was with them or that God was up to the challenge. When in reality, He was both. He was with them. And He was absolutely up to the challenge.

But because of their sinful fear, an entire generation of Israelites were never allowed to enter the Promised Land.

If we allow fear to stop us from pursuing this move, there will be consequences. God may forgive our fear. But we can also forget about the Promised Land.

Fear blocked God’s blessing for the Israelites. And if we operate from a standpoint of fear, the same thing will happen to us. God may forgive us. But He will not bless us.

And that’s where we stand today. We’re at a crossroad. Do we follow faith or do we follow fear?

Today, we are standing together as one to say, “We will not bend to fear. Our God is greater than our fears. He is bigger than our obstacles. He is more powerful than the armies who will oppose us. It will be hard. There will be rough days ahead. But our God is with us and He is up to the challenge. We reject fear. We choose faith.”

That’s what has brought us to this day. That’s what has brought us to the incredibly exciting times that we’re in. We are where we are because we haven’t let fear dominate us. And we’re not about to start now.

We have undertaken some tough tasks. Tasks like updating our bylaws. I shared a couple of weeks ago that as we started pursuing the new facility, we also discovered that our bylaws did not comply with Ohio law. We could have buried our head in the sand and said, “This is hard. We don’t want to do this.” But instead, we accepted the challenge because we knew it was what God was calling us to do. We knew that we couldn’t pursue a facility move if our bylaws weren’t up to snuff. That would just be begging for trouble. So we took on the challenge. And today we’re voting to accept those new bylaws that are both legal and Scriptural.

We’re in discussions with the realtor at this facility. We’re exploring contractors and financing. And I’ve got to be honest…it scares me. There have been a few freak out moments for me. I’ve shed tears. I’ve experienced sleepless nights. But I’m here on this stage telling you that I’m ok. In fact, I’m better than ok. I’m awesome. I’m awesome because I know this Scripture from Romans 8 is true.

Starting in verse 31, the Bible says, “What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:31-39, NIV)

If our God is for us, who can be against us? If God loved us enough to give us His Son, how can we doubt that He will bless our lives and our church? Nothing can separate us from His love. No power of darkness can do it. Nothing in our present can do it. No challenge in our future can do it. Nothing can separate us from God’s love. God staked His claim for us when Jesus died on the cross for us. And if God went to that kind of extreme for us, we can be sure that He will never leave us.

The days ahead of us are exciting and awesome and scary and uncertain. But we know that we are not alone. And that’s why we will never kowtow to fear, but we will move forward in faith.

Mike Edmisten

Tags: faith, fear, Numbers 13, Numbers 14, Umbrellas,