So here we have God’s chosen people standing in the midst of their blessings, in the midst of their manna saying….. What do you think they were saying? Do you think they were saying, great is Thy faithfulness? Don’t hold your breath. The Israelites standing ankle deep in manna were whining and complaining and portraying an attitude of ungratefulness.
They said, “God we miss Egypt. We miss the fish and the garlic and the onions and the melons.” How quickly they forgot the brutal sting of the whips of the Egyptian guards. Now before we dog the Israelites too much, I think it would serve us well to put the spotlight on our own lives because so often we concentrate and focus on what we don’t have as opposed to what we have. And we, like the Israelites, stand in the midst of manna moaning and groaning and whining and complaining and not being appreciative for all that God has done in our lives.
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God connects his spirit with our spirits. So check this out now. God has taken the responsibility of worship off of your shoulders and my shoulders and he’s placed it on the back of the Holy Spirit of God. So the Holy Spirit of God energizes our spirit. And if he energizes our spirit, it connects that to the truth. So, we can worship God in spirit and truth.
The Holy Spirit has the responsibility of firing up our feelings and our emotions so that, being tethered to the truth, we can have this passion for God’s fashion. We can glorify God, we can worship him in spirit and in truth—not with just feelings. Not just like, “Well, I feel it, so I guess it must be real.” No, no, no, no. We’d better be tethered to the truth. If we’re not, our feelings will get freaky, man. Our feelings can mess us up.
In the 60’s, what was the mantra? “If it feels good do it!” We still live by that today, don’t we? “How do you feel about that? Go with your gut.” But what if you’re sick on your stomach? Many times, if it feels good, that means I shouldn’t do it. “Feelings, whoa, whoa, feelings.”
Let’s talk about feelings, because feelings, if they’re not processed in the right frame work, can get funky and freaky on us. Feelings can keep us from worshiping God in spirit and in truth.
We Get Our Feelings From God
Here’s the first statement I want to talk to you about concerning feelings. God has given us our feelings and we should thank him for the feelings. Our feelings come from God.
God has feelings, too. When we worship Him, we can make God smile. We can make his heart beat fast. Think about Jesus. He got tired, he was lonely, he cried, he got angry. He was perfect emotionally. All of our feelings, all of our emotions come from God. We should say “Yeah, God! Thank you for the opportunity, for the ability to feel stuff.”
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They knew it. Everybody agreed. Here is something that you need to understand. Whenever we step out and claim land that God wants us to claim in our marriage, with our friends, around the office, on the team, at the company, at Fellowship Church; whenever we step out and take turf for God’s kingdom, the right they and the wrong they will always be right there. It’s so obvious to see the right they and the wrong they. The right they and the wrong they.
The Wrong They
Well, ten of the twelve spies become the wrong “they”. Check them out. Numbers 13:31-32, “But the men who had gone up with him said, ‘We are not able to go up against the people, for they are too strong for us.’ So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out.”
The wrong they are always negative. They always see the glass half empty. The wrong they. They’ll mess you up. We don’t have time and energy to hang out with the wrong they, because when we hang out with the wrong they, we become one of them and we never discover our uniqueness. We never take the land that God wants us to take.
Now, Numbers 14:1-4. So they spread a bad report and check out what’s happened now. “Then all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. All the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron; and the whole congregation said to them …Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword?”
Let me stop here for a second. The wrong “they” are negative, and negativity is an infectious disease. The wrong “them” began to spread and grumble all this junk and funk about what God wanted them to do. And now the whole nation is like, “I can’t believe it!”
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Illus: When you walked in you were given these postcards and these postcards are something that we have given you. We have tried to make it very easy for you. If you want to you can put a stamp, it costs $0.29. We have tried to help you, $0.29. You can mail this to someone that God has placed in your heart, in your path. Or maybe, just maybe, and I like to do this, just use this card and write a little note and invite someone.
About 70 percent of people will show up if someone they know invites them to church. And we have like seven services here, and we have all these other services in our satellite campuses, in Plano, Uptown and Alliance. There is no way people can say to you and me no; they can’t say that many no’s. It’s impossible. And even if they live in China they can’t say no because they can watch us on the worldwide web or television or podcast or whatever we do. Hell is evangelistic. Here is what Jesus said in Mark 1:17, “Come, follow Me…and I will make you fishers of men.”
That is why fishing is a biblical sport, isn’t it? That’s why I fish. I fish for fins and scales and also I fish for men and women who are saying hell yes because I want them to say hell no. And how do you say hell no? By stepping over the line and making a grace reception. Here is the sixth lesson from hell. It is going to be funny. Hell is always growing. Have you ever thought about that? Hell is growing. Isaiah 5:14, “Therefore the grave enlarges its appetite and opens its mouth without limit.”
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“Oh man, I can take care of it myself, man. I can throw money at it. I can throw work at it. I can throw control at it. I can change myself.” No, no, no. Don’t lean on your own understanding. “In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your path straight.”
And then David in the last portion of this Psalm 32:9‑11 he talks about a horse and a mule. I don’t really like horses and mules that much. I like to look at them, but they don’t like me. I don’t know why but they look at me like.
ILLUS: We have some horses and mules near our house, and I try to come up and make friends with them because I love the wild kingdom; I love animals. They just don’t dig me. I don’t know if it’s my breath, or what, they just don’t like me. I try to bait them with apples and sugar. They will not come up to me.
I have a friend, though, who has put a bit in their mouth, I have watched him, a bridle over their head, and he has drug these mules and horses over to see me.
Don’t wait to make that change. Don’t wait to grab onto Christ’s garment until God’s got to put a bit in your mouth or a bridle on your head. Don’t wait for that. Grab the garment now.
David says, “Do not be like the horse or the mule,which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you. Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in Him. Rejoice in the LORD and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart.”
People say, “Well the gospel is Jesus dying on the cross and rising again, right?” That’s part of it. That’s not the full gospel. The full gospel is the other half that a lot of people don’t even talk about. It’s the fact that Jesus lived a perfectly righteous life. And because of his righteous life, he can pay the price for your sins and mine, and die and rise again.
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The children of Israel, God’s chosen people, had miraculously been taken from slavery. God parted an ocean for them. He gave them a GPS system to guide them. He fed them manna fajitas from heaven. He gave them this incredible tract of land called the Promise Land. We’re going to drill down and look at twelve leaders of God’s people. They are called the twelve spies, because God told Moses to tell the people to pick twelve leaders to go out and do a reconnaissance mission on the Promise Land. And God said, “The land is yours. Just claim the land. But first, go out and check it out.”
So that is where we have this whole thing with negativity and positivity. Because these people, ten of the twelve spies, ten of the twelve leaders have the positive on the negative and the negative on the positive. And they experienced a meltdown. We’re going to find out that two people, two out of twelve people put the positive on the positive and the negative on the negative. And they hit the door of destiny. And that is in the cards for you and for me, because that’s the kind of life that Jesus wants.
Let’s dive in. Numbers 13:27‑28. In verse 27 the spies say, “Okay Moses, here is the deal. The land is awesome! All this fruit; it’s a bumper crop. It’s gorgeous.”
But look at verse 28, “…but…”
You show me somebody who is negative and I will show you somebody who has a big “but.”
“Yeah, but… I know, but… We can try now, but…”
[the verse continues] “…but the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large.”
Now look at verse 30. You see, Caleb and Joshua were the two out of the twelve. “Then Caleb silenced the people.”
He was saying, “You guys shut up.”
He said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”
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You won’t believe this. 1 Corinthians 15:20, “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Would somebody help me preach? Is that incredible? They took the seed, Jesus, buried him. We’re the fruits of his resurrection. He’s the vine and we’re the branches. That is some awesome stuff. So I am made and you’re made to be blessable, and it all goes back to a bunch of cantaloupes. We smell ‘em, we thump ‘em, we bring the best. We give God the best.
Let’s go back to Eve. Malachi 3:8-9, because Malachi syncs up with all this stuff. “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me,” God says. “But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’ In tithes and”—what? We’re eating the tithe. We’re going Eve aren’t we? Malachi 3:10, “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this.” The only time in the Bible that God says, “Test me and see if I’ll not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing”—oh my goodness—“that you’ll not have enough room for it.”
When we eat the tithe, when we rob God, when we choose to be cursed, we are slamming the windows of heaven. We’re locking them up, we’re putting bars on the windows, not God. God wants to bless you and me and one of the major ways he talks about throughout Scripture is in this whole financial realm. Obviously God can bless much greater than finances. My life is a testimony of that, but because I bring the tithe, because I bring the cantaloupe God is blessing my socks off.
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That’s an amazing point to think about.. .that Jesus has a personal invitation for you and for me. Respond to it. You see, most of us are standing outside, looking in saying, “Boy, I would love to play on that golf course. I would love to have that strength, that clear conscience, that power. It would be phenomenal to be able to do that”. But Jesus says, “Respond to my invitation and I will let you play”. What’s another characteristic of living in the will of God in relationship to golf? You’ve got to secondly, listen to your caddie. Listen to your caddie. I was out at the Byron Nelson Friday morning and the caddies are so important to the world class golfers.
They talk to them. The caddie gives them advice on what club to use, 2-iron, 7-iron, wedge. They even watch the professional golfer’s swing to give them advice. They help them read the green. “It’s going to break right to left about a foot. You need to hit it in that direction”. You’ve seen that picture…those who know the game of golf. The Word of God says the moment we receive Jesus Christ into our lives, the first thing He does is He puts the person of the Holy Spirit inside our lives and I call the Holy Spirit the spiritual caddie. He’s a spiritual caddie.
Ed Young Author – The Bible says suffering is inevitable. It’s going to happen. If you’re breathing, if your heart is beating, you will go through some sort, some type of suffering, some type of distress, problems or pain…it’s going to happen! So don’t live your life on the defensive and “Whoa. I hope I’m not going to suffer”. Go ahead and step out and follow the Lord and let Him carry you through the suffering.
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Today, we’re going to find out that Jesus was passionate about something else. He was passionate about servanthood. He was passionate about making people like you and me into servants. And this is done in a supernatural way. And we’re going to talk about that supernatural way. But again, I go back to my self-centeredness and my selfishness because every time I read verses from the Gospels where, where Christ is challenging me to be a servant, these verses haunt me. They mess me up.
They get in my face because I’m a self-centered guy. I’m a selfish guy. I’m a natural born sinner, and so are you. Awhile back the dogs were getting out of our fence. So without Lisa suggesting anything to me, I jumped out of my truck, walked into our garage and picked up Lisa’s toolbox – I mean my toolbox. I was thinking to myself, “You know what? I’m going to serve everyone by just doing something that, you know, a lot of good people do. I’m going to fix the fence. I’m not going to call attention to it. I’m not going to tell anybody I’m doing it. I’m just going to do it out of the kindness of my heart.”
Ed Young Author – So I had my toolbox and I was walking toward the fence and I thought, “You know what… (I just couldn’t stand it) I’m going to walk by the kitchen window because I know Lisa is preparing dinner. I just can’t serve by myself. I’ve got to have someone applauding me.” So as I walked by Lisa looked at me, and I pointed at the toolbox to show her what I was doing. That’s not Biblical servanthood.
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You have just received a phenomenal promotion which means that you will have to move to La Jolla, California. There is a big raise and new benefits plus a company apartment overlooking the Pacific. You can’t wait to tell you family and your friends about the promotion. You tell them and they say, “California, you won’t like California. The weather is nice but the people are kind of strange and superficial. You’ll be back in Texas, I’ll guarantee it, in about a month.” How do you respond to that?
What happens when you find yourself dancing with wolves – dancing with criticism and opposition from an ex-spouse, a mate, a co-worker, a friend, a neighbor or from someone you don’t even know. What do you do about it? The stinging barb of criticism hurts, doesn’t it? Opposition and criticism has the potential to depress us, disable us and debilitate us.
We have been in a series on leadership. We have been talking about a man who was one of the greatest leaders to ever live. His name was Nehemiah. Nehemiah is going to show us how to handle criticism and opposition. God tapped Nehemiah on the shoulder and asked him to go to Jerusalem, God’s city, and to do something that had not been done for 90 years.
Ed Young Author – Nehemiah’s task was to rebuild the walls around an entire city. And you will see that Nehemiah took some serious flack when he attempted this project, as he built the project and even when the project was completed. Let’s sit back and observe how this man handled all of this junk thrown his way. I think we all can learn a thing or two about handling criticism and opposition. I am going to break this message down into two parts.
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