WHAT DO YOU SEE – The Church Of Christ, 15 Grey Street, Warri

Text: Numbers 13:33, 1 Samuel 17: 26

By: OBOMEDAIRE, JUDE

INTRODUCTION:

Life is full of a lot of ups and downs, and we sometimes wonder when it will come to an end, life is becoming harder every day, our health is nothing to write home about, things are even becoming worst every day to the extent that God does not make sense to us anymore. As you are reading this message right now, you alone know what challenge you are passing through in life. As our faces differ so our challenges are. When you think your case is worst then you will hear another person’s story then you begin to appreciate God.

Today message is to encourage those of us that are going through one challenge or the other. But the big question is what do you see when you are face with challenges?

When the Israelites got Kardesh, God instructed Moses to send men to explore the land of Canaan, thus Mose pick out twelve men each from the tribes of Israel. Num.17:3-20. These men went there and came back with the report of what they saw.

In these stories, the men actually came back with two different reports. These reports were based on what they SAW. We are going to look and study each report carefully and also see how it affects our lives as Christians today

First report: In verse 33 some of the spy gave their report

“And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.”

When these set came back to Kardesh, they described how fertile the land is and also came with some evidence. They also gave a report of the challenge they saw. They saw that the children of Anak occupied the land and the children of Anak are giant and they are very strong thus the spy were afraid. With this fear in their heart, they gave their report and the Bible refers to it as an evil report v32 this is because After these report the Israelites beginning to cry and Mormons. The report brought fear, impossibility before the nation of Israel.

What do you see when you look at your challenges?

The second report: Out of these twelve leaders from each tribe of Israel only two came back with a different report. Num. 14:1-9. In this chapter Joshua and Caleb did not. deny that there is challenge in the land, But they have the believe that the land is theirs despite all odds, they saw possibility, they drove fear away and encourage them to go get the land not by their power but by God by their sides v8.

THE IMPLICATION OF WHAT YOU SEE

What you see when there are challenges affect you in so many ways, in this lesson we are going to look at the implication of seeing or being negative(pessimistic). When there are giants in our land that is filled with milk and honey

It magnify the problem: Having a negative mindset of a situation makes it bigger. Thus we defect ourselves even before the main battle. This was why the Israelites were crying, the felt defected because they saw their problem bigger are perfect match. In this story, the Israelites saw that their problem is bigger than God thus they were afraid. Thats exactly how so of us behave when we have challenges especially when the challenge have lingers for too long, we begin to accept defect, we begin to see impossibility, fear begins to take over our lives and when this happens we find ourselves giving up on God. God no longer make sense because we have loss faith in God.
Stop telling God how big you problem is rather tell your problem how big your God is. In 1samuel 17 David belittle his challenge, he refused to magnify Goliath despite his size rather he refers to him as uncircumcised. Facing reality Goliath will crush David but David was not afraid because he knows that the battle is not his but is of Lord just like Joshua and Caleb did and they were more than Conqueror.

STOP GIVING IN TO FEAR

In num.13 the Bible said the first spy gave in to fear. Num. 13v30-31.

Any battle you can’t conquer from the inside you will loss it. Every battle begins from the inside thus the spy has already been defeated from the inside thus they had lost to the sons of Anak even before the actual war.

When we accept self-defeats it weakens us and thus if our challenge is Even as small as ant we can’t defeat it. Rather we see the situation more bigger than us.

As Christians let’s but away fear, let’s be optimistic, let’s cultivate the spirit of a winner even when we are face with great challenges. Let’s behave like Joshua, Caleb and David. They conquer not because their problem is small but because the refuses to be defected.

Count your blessings

When there are tough challenges, Many Christians always forget how God had delivered them from previous battle or challenges. The first spy had forgotten how God had protected and deliver from Egypt to Kardesh. Num14:11-14.

David also remembers how he had killed so many wild animals and he recognized that is not by his power, but God did.

Let’s learn to count our won battle rather than our loss. Let’s learn from hero’s in the Bible that defected their Goliath and draw strength from them

Conclusion

One thing we should understand in all these stories is that the report was never a lie. Physically the children of Anak were truly giant and they are very dreadful. The Goliath in David’s story was truly stronger than David. But they were able to conquer because