The Minority Report
Minority Report
Numbers 13-14 and John 15:1-5
#numbers #numbers13 #courage #vision #faith #caleb #minorityreport
Sometimes, if you are waiting for the majority to move with you, you will end up waiting a long, long time. If you are waiting for popular opinion to tilt in your direction, you may never start at all. Today we are looking four courageous leaders who chose to move in faithfulness while the rest of their generation cowered in fear and doubt
“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Leadership, Vol. 15, no. 3.
Head/Mind – Helpful Information
This story should have been the start of a new day for the people of Israel. It should have been the opening chapter of a glorious new age for the people of God. They were on the boundary edges of the land God had promised to give them. Instead of the story ending in blessings and victory, it would be a time of defeat and the loss of blessings. God had offered His blessings to the Hebrew people to be received by faith. But this faith began to waver and instead of holding out empty hands to receive the promises of God, the people were simply holding out.
Warren Wiersbe in his commentary on the book of Numbers says, “The Lord has a perfect plan for each of His children, but we can claim these blessings only by faith and obedience. Like the people of Israel centuries ago, many believers today walk by sight and not faith, and therefore they fail to enjoy the good things God has for them.”
On the edge of exciting possibilities, these folks could literally see the promised-land. But, by the end of this story this same generation would be confined to wandering the wilderness for an additional forty years wandering about in the wilderness. And so, sadly we learn from this story that the blessings of God can be forfeited. For our own instruction let us look at this story in order to avoid making the same errors. Let us look at the four sins that kept the people from receiving the blessings God had for them.
Heart- Sins That Keep us from Receiving God’s blessings.
1. They Refused to Believe the Word of God
God had promised the fathers and mothers of the Hebrew people to give to them the land of Canaan. All they were waiting on was for God to give the green light. When Moses said, “go,” the people organized a survey team, a vision team of sorts and the land was surveyed. What they found was exactly what God had said they would find. But in addition to a beautiful land flowing with milk and honey, the scouts also found a fierce people occupying land.
When they saw the size of the men occupying Canaan, ten of the scouts began shaking in their boots. In their own eyes they seemed as grasshoppers by comparison. The obstacles seem far to great to overcome, and, granted in their own strength the obstacles were towering and appeared insurmountable.
In his book Fuzzy Memories, Jack Handey writes:
There used to be this bully who would demand my lunch money every day. Since I was smaller, I would give it to him. Then I decided to fight back. I started taking karate lessons. But then the karate lesson guy said I had to start paying him five dollars a lesson. So I just went back to paying the bully.
Too many people feel it is easier just to pay the bully than it is to learn how to defeat him.
Sherman L. Burford in Fresh Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching (Baker), from the editors of Leadership.
The scouts not only felt inadequate to the task but set out to convince the rest the people of the foolishness of trying to enter into this disastrous task, the ten scouts set about…
II …trying to discourage God’s people from trusting God.
Thankfully, not everyone responded to the information this way. In fact there was a minority to report from Caleb and Joshua. These two scouts tried to encourage the people. Seeing the fear on their faces, Moses and Aaron prayed for the people, asking God to give them courage. These four men demonstrated faith and courage. Sure the Jewish men may have seemed like grasshoppers in comparison to the Canaanites, but did not the world seem like a grasshopper in comparison with the LORD their God? Moses, Aaron, Caleb, and, Joshua recognized a principle of life stated so well by John Gardner: “We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.” But the sins of these ten scouts and the people went even farther.
III. Defying God’s will by Usurping Godly Leadership
The ten scouts and the people decided they were sick of Moses and Aaron and began looking to replace them with leaders that would follow their agenda and take them back to Egypt, folks who would forget about the madness of trying to enter into The Promised Land. The problem was that Aaron and Moses were God’s men and were setting about to carry out God’s will. By usurping their authority the people placed themselves in the position of defying God’s will. This is not to say that we should never question spiritual leadership or simply do everything the pastor or lay leaders say. But when we considering challenging the leaders God has appointed we need to be sure we are doing so from a position of obedience to what we think is God’s will and not simply because we do not like what the leadership may be telling us.
As a result of this generation of Israelites, including the faithless scouts would never see the promised land. The only exception would be Caleb and Joshua. This was God’s judgment for these three sins. Upon hearing of God’s judgment, the people began to mourn and there was a spirit of regret. But they never moved in true repentance. Recognizing sin and feeling bad about it is not the same thing as turning from sin to the arms of God’s restorative grace. Seeing the great loss sin has caused them, they decided to add another sin.
IV. They were thus disobeying God’s direct command.
The first three sins were about not allowing God to give them The Promised Land. God gave them the green light and they refused to move. The fourth sin was about trying to take The Promised Land without God’s help. When God gave the stop light, they rushed in without God’s blessings. Having refused to walk in obedience and trust in God, they had been commanded not to attempt going into the land. They disobeyed and the results were devastating. When God was willing to give them the land, they refused. When he told them to wait, they walked in ahead of God.
Jesus says in the Gospel of John, ”I am the true vine, and my Father is the Gardner. He cuts off every branch that doesn’t bear fruit, and prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more…Remain in me, and I will remain in you…for you cannot be fruitful apart from me.”
God desires to add his blessings to our lives. God desires to work through us for his own glory. God desires for his people to be truly alive and for the church to experience the power of his presence. Sadly we in the church are often tempted to counterfeit the supernatural presence of God with chicanery, elegance, programming, emotionalism, professionalism and our own talents. But apart from our obedience and openness to the will of God in our lives we will often look healthy, while lacking the fruit of God’s presence.
Hands – Don’t Give Up the Fight Before Even Begins
Eighty years ago, as Notre Dame was preparing to play the USC Trojans in college football, Fighting Irish coach Knute Rockne was aware that his opponent had a far better team. So he devised a plan to intimidate the opposing players.
Rockne scoured the city of South Bend, Indiana (Notre Dame’s hometown), and hand-picked 100 of the largest men he could find—each at least six-foot-five and 300 pounds. He put the men in Fighting Irish uniforms and, at game time, marched them onto the field ahead of the real team. (Obviously, this was before the days of limited rosters and eligibility restrictions.)
As USC watched those giants line up on the sidelines, they forgot about their talent and their undefeated record, and they began mentally preparing themselves for a beating. Though none of the specially recruited men played during the game, their presence on the sidelines was enough to knock Southern Cal’s concentration off balance. Knute Rockne’s trick had worked; he had intimidated the Trojan players into giving up before the game even started.
Steve May, Sermonnotes.com
Let us join Caleb and Joshua in their minority report. Let us say “yes” Lord. Let it be according to your will. Your will be done, O Lord, on earth, in our lives, in our families, in our church and community, let your will be done just as it is done in heaven. Amen.