How to Not Miss God's Promises for Your Life | Robby Gallaty | Numbers 13 & 14

I just filmed a video, I don't tell you a lot about this, but I felt like this one would be helpful for our church. I get asked this a lot on our podcast, people ask us this online, and it's a question about translation. How did we get the translation we have of the Bible today? How did it go from Hebrew and Greek? Why do you preach from the CSB and not the ES? So I decided to film a video. I've been working on it for a month. Candy will tell you, yesterday I was in the office filming it two and a half hours, and she said, what happened? I said, I messed up multiple times, but thank God we got her done. So anyway, it drops tomorrow. I'll put a link, I think you could text the word YouTube to 98173, and I rank them all and show you kind of the idea behind it. So if you're interested in that tomorrow, we'll drop that. If you're at Long Holiday, we welcome you. If you're here at Gallatin and joining us at our Gallatin Campus, if you're joining us behind a prison cell or incarcerated or in a living room, we're so glad you're with us. Today, I wanna talk about grasshopper-itis. Grasshopper-itis, how not to miss the promises of God for your life like the Israelites did. If you have a Bible, you can turn to Numbers 13.

And as you turn there, we're gonna learn today what happens when you fear man more than you believe in God. And we're gonna see what happens when a couple bad apples ruin it for the entire nation of Israel. Numbers 13, how many people still reading through the book of Numbers, amen? How many people still reading through the plan, amen? Give yourself a hand, you made it through Leviticus. I mean, seriously, right? Now, but let me tell you something about Leviticus. When you read Leviticus, you are overwhelmed with the attention of God to detail, and it shows you just who God is and the fact that he's God and we're not, amen? That's literally what you see in Leviticus. Now you get to Numbers, and we get to chapter 13. We're at verse 17, we like to say word at Long Hollow. So if you're there, you can say word. Word. The word of the Lord. When Moses sent them, it's not the spies, by the way, because they're not stealing anything. They're not manipulating, they're scouts, okay? So when Moses, I love the CSB gets it right. When Moses sent them to scout out the land of Canaan, he told them, go up this way to the Negev, then go up into the hill country. See what the land is like, whether the people who live there are strong or weak,

few or many. Is the land they live in good or bad? Are the cities fortified or encampments? Is the land fertile or unproductive? And are there trees in it or not? Be courageous, bring back some of the fruit from the land. He said this because it was the season of the first ripe grapes. What I wanna show you Moses does here is interesting. He selects 12 of the choice men, one from each tribe. These are the leaders of the group. And he gives them a clipboard, proverbially, and a pen. He says, I want you to go on the land and survey the land. That's it. Survey the land. Find out, are the people strong or weak? Are there a lot of people or a few people? Are they in encampments or are they fortified behind walls? Is it fertile or barren? Are there trees or not? Notice what Moses does. I want a simple field report. What he didn't ask for was a strategic battle plan. That's not what he asked for. He didn't ask whether they had the ability or the capability to win. He simply asked for a diagnosis of the land. Now, why does he do this? God already gave him the land. God already promised the land.

All they had to do was walk in and what? Receive it or take it. But they come back with a very different story. And we're gonna learn two lessons today so that you and I don't miss the promises of God in our life because that's what they missed. They missed the promises of God. And the way you do that is, number one, is this. If you're taking notes, you can write this down. Do not overestimate the power of the enemy. That's what they did. Do not overestimate the power of the enemy. After the scouts got back, look at verse 27, drop down, and notice what happens. They reported to Moses, we went into the land where you sent us. Indeed, God was right. This land is flowing with milk and honey. Oh, by the way, here are some of the fruit of it. However, the people living in the land are strong and the cities are fortified. We also saw the descendants of Anak there, verse 32. So they gave a negative report to the Israelites about the land they had scouted. The land we pass through to explore is one that devours its inhabitants. And all the people we saw in it are men of great size. We even saw the Nephilim there, the descendants of Anak, who come from the, now, by the way, that messed you up this week, by the way, right?

Because you thought the Nephilim were done in the flood. By the way, if you're interested in the podcast, he goes to our church, he's in my discipleship group, his name's Nate Henry, and he has a podcast called The Blurry Creatures. Anybody familiar with Blurry Creatures podcast? I'm actually gonna be on the podcast, so you probably go, what is Blurry Creatures? Y'all laughing over here. Blurry Creatures talks about UFOs, aliens, Nephilim, and Bigfoot, who knew, right? From a Christian perspective, I'm gonna be on the podcast in a couple weeks, and the first question they ask on the podcast is this, what do you think of Bigfoot? I gotta come up with an answer. But anyway, the Nephilim are still here. If you're interested, he talks about the Nephilim. But the Nephilim are still here, so what is going on? Moses asked them for a simple description of the land. What they came back with was a prescription for defeat. Do you see the difference? I don't know about you, but I try to have yearly physicals every year to stay alive. Anybody with me? I go to my doctor, and they do the same thing every year. They run a bunch of blood work. They ask you a bunch of diagnostic questions, and then they kind of give you a once-over. And at the end of it, he doesn't really prescribe

anything at that point. It's just a diagnosis. Now, we know the difference between a diagnosis from a doctor and a prescription to take, right? The diagnosis doesn't heal you. It's the prescription you take that heals you, right? The scouts come back with, at first, a diagnosis. They're like, man, the land's exactly like God said. Milk and honey, there are grapes there. It's pretty strong, fortified cities, even giants there. And then they move to a prescription, and they say, yeah, but we can't go. Why? They will devour people like us. Compared to them, we won't win. And what's the problem with that? God didn't ask for a prescription. He already gave them the prescription. He said, go into the land, it's yours. And what was the problem? Don't miss this. The scouts of the land feared the people more than they believed in God's promise. They feared the people more than they believed in the promise of God. And if we're not careful, that same thing can happen to us, right? The enemy who's out to get us, he doesn't just defeat us. You have to understand, he wins by distracting us long enough to where we focus on peripheral,

non-eternal things, non-kingdom agenda items. And his greatest weapon in your life and mine is one thing. You know what it is? Fear. Fear. Anybody know what I'm talking about? Fear paralyzes Christians. Fear cripples Christians. And I'm talking about the fear, particularly of human beings, men and women. The first test of leadership came at my previous church, right after I got there. I think it was there three or four months. And the context when I got there was, we didn't have a worship pastor, we had someone leading the congregation in worship. We had someone serving in an interim role, and he was very gifted in choir and orchestra. We had a pretty large choir and orchestra. I think it was about 80 people total, 85 choir and orchestra. He was very gifted. He had, I think his claim to fame was, his agent was Barbara Streisand. Only reason I know that is, they told me that regularly. But anyway. But I asked him when I first got there, and I said, hey, are you trying to be like the worship pastor for our church? Because we need someone to lead us in worship. He responded by his own admission,

and he said to me right out the gate, he said, I can't sing. I was like, wow, well, that's gonna be a problem, right? And if you knew him, and not many people knew this, he would say, praise, he did this every week. He just said he just mouthed the words, okay? Which is fine, because that's not what he was called to do. But the choir and orchestra wanted him to be the guy. And they told me that repeatedly. Week after week, they were lobbying every week. When are you gonna make him the guy? Why don't you make him the guy? And I went back, and I sought the Lord. And I prayed about it, and God just didn't give me a piece about that. And so I would go to church, and they would say, why can't he be the guy? And I'd say, because he can't sing. And they said, no, we'll sing. And I was like, that's not how it works. You need someone who God appoints to lead people into worship, as a worship leader. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a Thursday morning, after choir and orchestra practice the night before. I went into the office that morning, and on my desk was a piece of paper that was typed on the front, and it was handwritten on the back. And I picked that paper up, and it said,

Dear Pastor Robbie, from the choir and orchestra at Brainerd, if you don't appoint this orchestra director to be the full-time worship pastor, you are about to lose the entire choir, the entire orchestra, and ultimately, the church. That'll bless you on a Thursday morning, right? I'm just saying. I was only there three or four months. I'd just moved my whole family. Rick was four months old. I mean, we had just moved there. To say it was a dark night. Night of the Soul was an understatement. Now what got me was when I turned the letter over on the back, they had one signature of a lady on the front. When I turned the letter over on the back part of the page, there were about 70 to 75 signatures from the choir and orchestra. And you can imagine, put yourself in my position, I'm like, I just got here, the whole choir and orchestra, leaders of our church, they're all against me, and I went back and prayed the rest of that week, but God had never given me a piece about this guy leading at that time. And so the following Wednesday, I walked into the choir, I had the note in my back pocket, I did it unannounced. And I asked the man who was leading, I said, hey, you don't mind, call the choir and orchestra together, I wanna have a meeting together with everybody.

And when everybody got in there, they were all there, and I held up the letter. And I said, hey, listen, this is a letter I received last Thursday, and I don't know all you, I mean, I'm new to the church, I don't know everybody on this list, but apparently a lot of you signed this letter, and you want him to be the worship leader of our church. And I'm not interested, he may be, but the problem is, I haven't prayed about it. And I'm not interested in appointing anyone who I've not and we've not prayed about as a church, because we don't want a man to lead this church, we want God's man to lead our church, amen? That's not what they said. That's not what they said. They just looked at me, and I said, here's what we're gonna do, let's start this process off. And I knelt down in front of them, I was right in front, they were sitting behind me, in front of me, and I knelt down, I said, hey, I'm gonna pray on my face before the Lord, and we're gonna start the process praying. And I prayed, and I got up, and no one joined me. And I walked out of there with the letter, and eventually, by God's grace, a couple months later, we found God's man for the church, his name is Brian Skinner, and by God's grace, he's been there for 16 years. So you would assume that was God's man for the place, Brian's still there today.

The orchestra director left shortly thereafter. Now, here's what I didn't know at the time, because I was pressured to acquiesce to the people. I was pressured to make people alive. I didn't wanna lose the church, and how easy would it have been just to do what the people said. But here's the thing, I didn't know this at the time, but the next Sunday, I came to church, and no less than 20 people came up to me from the choir and orchestra, and here's what they said. They said, Pastor Robbie, I need to apologize. I said, why? They said, I didn't know what I was signing. Diane walked through the choir and orchestra that day. It was this person, the orchestra director's birthday. We thought we were signing a birthday card to him. Here's the point why I tell you that story. I had a choice in that moment, and the choice was to allow the fear of people to overshadow the leading of God and his plan for our church and my life. How easy is it for us to do that, right? Here's what I've learned about God. When you have a word from God, you won't fear men and women, amen? But when you're fearful of other people, and men, and women, and online trolls, and keyboard cowboy, and everybody attacking you, it's probably because you haven't heard a word from God.

Here's the point I wanna make. Do not overestimate the power of the enemy. Number two is, don't underestimate the power of God. That's what they did. They underestimated what God could do. Look at chapter 14, verse seven. The land we passed through and explored is extremely good land. Now, this is Joshua and Caleb, they're saying together, they're the only two who are going to believe they could take it. If the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us into this land, a land flowing with what? Milk and honey, just like he said, and he will give it to us. Only don't rebel against the Lord, and don't be afraid of the people of the land, for we will devour them. Their protection has been removed from them. Now, here's the key line of the whole passage. Because why? The Lord is with who? Us, don't be afraid. Caleb and Joshua had something that the others didn't have. They saw the land in a different way the others couldn't see. While the 10 come back, looking at the size of the giants, they're looking at something else. By the way, if you read this week, they come home with the grapes.

Did you catch this? On their shoulders, on sticks. The grapes are so big. Now, a lot of people think we're just a lot of grapes. The rabbis believed it wasn't just the quantity of grapes, it was the quality of grapes. These were the biggest grapes they'd ever seen in their life. And here's the point. While the 10 scouts are looking at the size of the giants, the two, Joshua and Caleb, are looking at the size of the grapes. And here's the point. Everybody in here views life through a filter. Everybody. Whether you know it or not, we view life through a filter. The filters we view life through. Circumstances, experiences, highs, lows, successes, wins, losses. They create a filter where we look through to create a virtual reality in which we live. And many people, sadly, don't even know they view life through this filter. Now, here's how I know that's true. Have you ever talked to someone who opposes or has a different perspective of politics as you? It's not for the faint of heart, right? Or a different perspective of the president than you, right? And here's the reality. Their reality, like yours and mine, is shaped by the filters we view everything through,

through the news stations we watch, through the radio we listen to, through the music we take in, through the social media we allow in our life, through the influencers we get our news sources from. Most of us in here, sadly, we live in an echo chamber of ideas and we don't even realize it. Here's what I mean, and I've learned this from YouTube recently. YouTube feeds you, like me, an algorithm for things we like. And what happens is you create this false dichotomy where you think the whole world looks like you, talks like you, acts like you, speaks like you, and you live in this. Some of you are like, I don't believe that. You know how you know if you're living this way and you don't know it? The moment someone pushes back, you say, not me. Those folks, not, I tell you now, that's how you know you're living in an echo chamber. Why I tell you that? The Israelites lived the same way. The Israelites were in Egypt for 400 years and the way they perceived reality was through the filter they were accustomed to. Okay, here's the filter. They were abused, you gotta understand this. They were punished, they were persecuted,

they never had hope, they never got ahead, they were always used, and because of that, they had this filter. And don't miss this, they adopted this identity of being worthless. Nobody likes us, nobody cares for us. Pessimism for the Israelites was not just an attitude, it was a survival tactic because they were let down over and over and over. And God brings them out of the bondage of Egypt and they go to the promised land. And you would think they start thinking differently, right? I mean, they just saw 10 plagues of the demonstration of the glory of God. That would have been enough for me, amen? But God's like, no, I'm not through yet. Let me show you how I can produce fresh-baked Leidenheimer's bread. Probably not, but that's what I like from New Orleans. Fresh French bread, manna from heaven, right? That I'm gonna produce. Oh, by the way, if you're thirsty, I'll produce a water fountain from this rock right here. Oh, I'm not done yet. We're gonna walk on dry ground through this. Oh, and then I'm gonna show off on a mountain with clouds. And here's the problem. God provided everything they need, but over time, the quail got tough. And the manna got stale.

And the water dried up. And what happened to them is they stopped appreciate, don't miss this, they stopped appreciating all that God had given them, and they were only worried about that in which God had not, or what they were being withheld from God. They focused on everything they didn't have, and they missed to glorify God for the things they did have. Now, we know people like this, this pessimistic all the time. I heard of a monk in a monastery. He was going in as a mentee in a monastery, and he went to the abbot. It was a pretty strict monastery. This monastery, you couldn't talk for the entire year. It was total silence, pretty strict. And they were kind of isolated in their cells. And he went in, and the abbot said, here are the rules. He said, you're gonna live this whole year, one rule, no talking, but at the end of the year, you're gonna get to tell me two words. That's it, so think long and hard. I mean, 365 days, you got a long time. Think about what you say. At the end of the first year, the man in the monastery went to the abbot, and he said, okay, what are your two words? And his two words were, beds hard. Put a lot into that one, yeah, beds hard.

Three to 65 days later, at the end of the second year, he asked the man, he said, what are your two words? He said, foods cold, okay. End of the third year, he saw him again. He waited a whole year. Did you think about your words? Yes, sir, I have. What are your two words? I quit, I quit, yeah. And the abbot looked at him and said, I guess so. All you've done around here is complain the whole time you've been here. I mean, that's how some people are, right? No matter what God provides, they're consumed with what they don't have. They have this victim mentality like the Israelites, right? And I need you to hear this. You can't change, don't miss this. You can't change your past, but you can change your perspective in the present. Here's what I mean. To do that, because it's not easy, to do that, you have to differentiate between fault and responsibility. Watch this, fault and responsibility. Here's what I mean. The Israelites were not at fault for what happened to them in Egypt. It was not their fault that they were slaves in bondage. But what they did have is a responsibility to move forward.

Look at me for a moment. The abuse you received, and somebody's gonna need to hear this today. The abuse you received as a child was not your fault. The parent you lost way too soon in life was not your fault. The relationship that fell apart was not your fault. The dream job you thought you had, and this was it for the rest of your life that you lost, was not your fault. The child God took home prematurely too early is not your fault. But the reality is this. We have to take responsibility for how we're going to live from this day forward. I wanna encourage you right now, if you're in the midst of that season of a trial or a tough season now, let me challenge you. Instead of saying, God, why did this happen to me? Because that's the easy, that's the knee-jerk response. Why me, God? Why, I can never, and I will never, and it's all, that normally has no response. The better question is this. God, how do you want me to respond? Try that. Or better yet, God, what do you want to teach me? Or what can I learn from this situation? See, a change in perspective, write this down, doesn't just alter your future. It determines if you're gonna walk in it.

Say that again. It doesn't just alter your future, it determines, because they didn't believe, they didn't even walk in the promise of God for their life, and that's why I titled the sermon Grasshopper-itis. That's what the 10 spies had. They had Grasshopper-itis. Here's what I mean. The more they focused on the enemy and the size of the enemy, it grew larger, and the less they focused, or the more they focused on the enemy, not God, they grew smaller in their own eyes. Their enemies grew larger, and they got smaller. Now, have you ever wondered why grasshoppers? You ever thought about this? We look like grasshoppers. Thought about this this week. Do you know, in the ancient world, the only insect allowed to eat, or condoned by the ancient world, the only edible insect, the smallest of all, was a grasshopper? Some of you are like, that's not on my edible list, but it was on their list. It would be like us today saying, we were like shrimps in their eyes, right? Now, I don't know if you know the phenomenon of this. There's a psychological phenomenon called catastrophizing. It's an interesting word, catastrophizing.

It's a phenomenon where the longer you think about a small problem, over time, it grows into something that turns into a catastrophe. The longer you ruminate and focus, and some of you know what I'm talking about. We know people like this. A headache, oh, I need brain surgery. Golly, this thing is a tumor. We know people like that, right? A bad quarter, oh, we're gonna file bankruptcy as a company, it's over, right? An argument in the marriage, it's like, well, we're gonna end in divorce. These are people who exaggerate things by focusing on. Here's how you gotta think, I was thinking this week. It's kind of like a shadow. If the sun is directly above me, and the sun is shining down on me direct at noon, then the shadow below me is small and imperceptible. It's barely noticeable, because you can't really see it. But don't miss this. As the sun goes away from me in the distance, the shadow behind me grows longer, and it becomes more distorted as it extends. Here's the point. The giants did not get bigger to the Israelites. What happened is, the Israelites kept moving away from God, so therefore, God looked small, and so did they, because they were far from the light source. The further away they got from the source, the sun, God,

they started to look small, and their enemies looked big. Same thing goes for you. The further you're away from God, it looks insurmountable. It looks like you're all alone. When we do that, don't miss this, the shadows in our life will grow exponentially. So here's my challenge to you. Stop focusing on what you can't do, and start believing and focusing on what God says you can do. Because here's the difference. The difference between Joshua and Caleb in the 10 is one thing. They had a different filter, and here's their filter. Their filter was, the Lord is what? With us. Thank you, Justin, try it again. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They focused on, the Lord is with who? Us, the Lord is with us. What does that mean? Somebody's gonna need to hear this. You can come up with 1,000 reasons to not move forward, but you only need one to do it. God said so. Friends, you and I live in a world as a. that any time you make a move toward the Lord, you need to hear this, the devil is always making a counter move in your life. That's how it always works.

And I like to say it this way, you're either colluding with Satan or you're colliding with Satan, but there's no in between. It's either or, say that again. You're either colluding or planning or in cahoots with Satan or you're colliding and coming against Satan. I heard one person say, if you don't bump into the devil from time to time, it may be because you are walking in the same direction. I mean, that's reality, right? The difference between winning and losing is sometimes who's fighting with you or better yet, who you're fighting for. Because when you know who's alongside of you or who you're fighting for, it changes everything. I know this, I remember where I was when this happened. It was February 11th, 1990 was the year. I was in my living room looking at one of those box TVs. Remember those box TVs back in the day? And we were gonna watch the most feared heavyweight champion of the world at that time, 37 and 0, Iron Mike Tyson. How many people remember this fight? His opponent that night was a man named James Buster Douglas. He had a 42 to one chance to beat Tyson. Now, to put that in perspective, the Vegas odd, the bookies in the Vegas casinos stopped taking bets because it was such a big, everybody was betting Tyson 42 to one.

They just stopped taking bets because they said it's insurmountable. Every commentator, every news source, every odd maker had the same outcome for the fight. Tyson destroys him without breaking a sweat. Landslide, walk in the park for Iron Mike. But what they didn't know was that Buster Douglas was training with a purpose. And in the 10th round against every odd you could put up against him, he shocked the world and he knocked out Mike Tyson. Some of you remember exactly this moment and where you were at the time. Now, what the media didn't know is, 23 days prior to this fight, Buster Douglas unexpectedly lost his mother, his hero, the one who sacrificed for him to get where he was. And then an interview after the fight, he said to the reporter, he said, I dedicated that fight to my mom. See, here's the point of that. Sometimes the very thing in life that may look like an obstacle could be the very motivation and fuel to catapult you forward. The very thing that it seems like is against you may actually give you the gift to move forward. And when the right person is fighting beside you, watch this, the odds don't matter. The 10 scouts looked at the land of Canaan

and accepted the verdict based on the numbers. Caleb and Joshua looked at the spreadsheet and said, it doesn't matter what it calculates, God is with us, let's go take the land. Here's the point. If God is for you and the world is against you, then you're in the majority. Did you know that? If God is for you and everybody's against you, you're still in the majority. So let me ask you this morning, what is God leading you to do? What step of faith, radical step of faith, look at me, that God is leading you to take right now? Because maybe you've been cowered back, sitting on the sidelines for far too long. But Pastor Robbie, the odds are stacked against me. Pastor Robbie, it seems insurmountable. I get it. So did it for Joshua and Caleb. Where's God leading you today? Before you take a step of faith, let me remind you, look at what God's already done. Look at the blueprint of God in your life. Look at the handiwork of God. Look at the promises of God already fulfilled. Stop fixating on the size of the giant and start focusing on the size of our God. Remember, giants tend to look different depending on which direction you're walking.

They tend to look different if you're walking with God. Let me say it another way. You won't be intimidated by what stands in your way if you remember who's walking beside you. And if God is for you, what does the Bible say? Who can be against us, amen? Who can be against you? Let me pray for us now. I'm gonna invite you in a moment to come, just make these steps, an altar at Gallatin. You're at home, maybe in a prison cell. You wanna make that place by your bunk or bed, just an altar before the Lord. I'm gonna pray and then give you an opportunity to respond this morning. Father, we're asking right now for those who are in a tough situation. Those who feel like they're doing it alone by themselves. Maybe they don't have direction, they don't have peace. Maybe they feel like. Everyone is against them. They feel like the odds are stacked up or there's no way. God, we know you're not only a person who gives us a path to walk on, but you're a way maker. And so I'm gonna pray today, God, for those who need courage, who need faith increased, who need guidance, direction. I'm praying today, God, as they come and meet with you, you speak to them individually and personally. God, give them a word, fitly spoken,

that applies to their current situation today. We ask it in Jesus' name. And everyone said. Amen.