Giant Slayer

We are going to open to Deuteronomy in chapter 1. And we're going to stay in Deuteronomy for a while. But I just really want us to walk through this passage together. It says in Deuteronomy chapter 1, we're going to look at verse 6. And we're going to go to verse 8. It says, when we were at Mount Sinai. Now, we meaning Moses. This is Moses and the Israelites. lights. When we were at Mount Sinai, the Lord our God said to us, you have stayed at this mountain long enough.

Let's just stop there for just a minute. Sometimes in our life, we approach a mountain, and we just stop and stay there. When God has told us to speak to that mountain, mountain when God has told us to keep going. But we, in our own natural flesh, we get to a mountain and we stop. And here God is saying, you have stayed at this mountain long enough. That mountain Mountain could be depression. It could be a sickness.

It could be pain. It could be an addiction. It could be strife and division in a relationship. It could be financial pressure. Whatever that mountain is in your life, I believe today God is saying, you have stayed at this mountain long enough.

Let's look at verse 7. It says. So here, We're going to go to that in just a minute. So here God is telling us or telling the people of the Israelites and Moses that they've stayed at a mountain long enough. He's telling them to go. And he didn't tell them to go to just one place. He told them that they were going to an entire land. Let's look at verse 8. It says, Look, I am giving all this land to you.

Go in and occupy it. For it is the land the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to all their descendants. Here I want to go back. When God said stay, I looked up the definition of stayed. And you can take that off the screen. Stay means to continue in a place or condition. To continue in a place or condition. If you think back over this year, are you in the same position as you were last year?

If you think about five years ago, are you in the same condition that you were in five years ago? And this is not to condemn you or to make you feel guilty. Like I told you, these are things that I have been walking out for a few months that I feel like God has said to me. You have stayed at this mountain long enough. I've told you to go and do certain things. Now I'm asking you to go and occupy that. Let's take a look at verse 19. It's the same Deuteronomy chapter 1 verse 19. It says.

Sometimes when God shows up and says, enough is enough. I need you to do something. It doesn't mean that it's always easy. I wish it was easy every time because then I would probably do it immediately. But if I'm honest, sometimes I need God to say, go, get moving, stop staying in the same position. And sometimes when we're traveling through life, it is great. It feels greater than us and it's terrifying.

And wilderness means that sometimes it's dry and lonely not all the time when God tells you to do something is he gonna have a whole group of people rallying you sometimes you do feel alone in the natural as you yourselves remember and headed towards the hill country of the Ammonites let's look at verse 20. Then just as the Lord, do you have verse 20? It's okay if you don't. Let's go to 21.

I may be skipping around. Okay. I said to you, you have now reached the hill country of the Ammonites that the Lord our God is giving us. Isn't it interesting that God always kept saying, this is the land I'm giving you. So when God's calling you to do something and it's starting to get terrifying and you're afraid to step out and God's always there to say, this is what I I told you to do. This is what I'm giving you. I'm right here with you, but we still feel that fear sometimes.

Let's take a look at, I'm actually going to skip around on you guys, and I'm sorry about that, but we're going to go to Psalms 23 verse 4.

It says, even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me, your rod and your staff protect and comfort me so here is David and here he's talking about there are going to be times that we walk through something a dark valley where we may feel afraid but we can declare with our mouth just like I said in the beginning when we make all those confessions that's walking by faith sometimes we have to open

our mouth and walk by faith and we can say even though I feel like I am going through this dark valley right now or this time in my life where I know that God has told me to do something. He's telling me to go and occupy something, but I want to stay because I feel like this mountain or this giant before me is bigger than me, and I want to stay, and I want to be comfortable. God is saying, you can walk through it because I'm right beside you.

So you can declare, I will go through this valley, and I will fear not because God is with me. His rod and and his staff, they comfort me. Let's go back to Deuteronomy 1, and we're going to look at 21.

And we're going to go through 27. It says, look, he has placed the land in front of you. Go and occupy it as the Lord, the God of our ancestors, has promised you. Don't be afraid and don't be discouraged. Verse 22, but you all came to me and said. So these are the people that came to Moses. And they said to Moses, first, let's send out scouts to explore the land for us.

They will advise us on the best route to take and which towns we should enter please leave that on the screen we're gonna go yeah 22 okay so we know this story where there is this land we know that God has said you stayed at the mountain long enough here's some land I want you to go in and I want you to occupy it the people come to Moses and say let us send some scouts in now God is not mad about scouts going into the land, but their intention is where they were wrong.

You could go in and scout this land and say, yes, this is the land God is giving us, and it is amazing, but he did not tell them to go in and scout it out so that they could advise the people on which towns to enter. We read a whole list of words I can't pronounce and of valleys and and all kinds of work. God said, take it all. He didn't say, go in and decide which town to enter. He said, go in and occupy it. And we are just like this, where, okay, God told me to do this.

Well, I'm going to try to do it a little bit easier, and I'm going to try to figure it out a little bit of a different way than God told me to. Let's look at 23. Verse 23, this seemed like a good idea to me, this is Moses, so I chose 12 scouts, one from each of your tribes. Verse 24, they headed for the hill country and they came to a valley and they explored it.

Verse 25, they picked some of its fruit and they brought it back to us and they reported the land of the Lord our God has given us is indeed a good land. Verse 26, but you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God, and you refused to go in. Verse 27, you complained in your tents and said, the Lord must hate us. That's why he has brought us here from Egypt, to hand us over to the Ammonites to be slaughtered. That is not what God said, right?

God did not say, I want you to go into this land so that I can cause these enemies that you think are so much bigger than you to destroy you. That is not God. When he is calling us into something, and it's uncomfortable, and it's causing us to maybe feel fear, we know that God is a loving God. He is not going to call us into something to cause us to be defeated. When that happens, we know immediately that is the enemy speaking.

The enemy wants us us to think that we will just be defeated and that God has abandoned us and let's run back to what is comfortable. It is so easy for human beings when we feel uncomfortable to just go back to the old ways. Can I just go back to that relationship?

It may have been the worst relationship of my life, but I need to go back or I need to go back to that old job because I knew exactly what to do when it was killing you there are addictions that you have broke free from and you may be called to help other people break free from it but when those times get really hard your flesh and the enemy will say go back to it because it's comfortable and you can just be comfortable but that's not what God is calling us to do.

God is calling us to go in and to occupy the land. And what I find very interesting here in this passage, it talks about the people went into these lands. They came back and said, yeah, this land is great, but we can't go in and occupy it. We can't do this. And then they went back into their tents and they complained. I have found in my life and with experience, the people that always want to stay put and they don't want to move on are the biggest complainers you will ever meet in your life.

They're going to complain and complain about everything, but they're not going to do anything to change their situation. We are not called to be like that. We are not going to sit around year after year and complain and complain about things. When God is like, I've already told you what to do, and I've told you to go forward, and I've told you to occupy, I've told you that you can experience true life, don't sit around. Don't stay at this mountain and complain and complain.

So let's take a look at verse 28 and see what the Lord said. He said.

Where can we go? Our brothers have demoralized us with their report. Keep going. They tell us these people, or the people of the land, are taller and more powerful than we are, and their towns are large with walls rising high into the sky. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak.

Here the Lord told them to go in and possess the land he did not even tell them at the time about giants in this land because it wasn't an issue for God God was not worried about giants being in the land because he knew that he was going in with them he just said you've stayed stayed here long enough, get all your materials, go in and occupy this land.

I will be with you. But here we see that these scouts that they sent in came back and they demoralized the people by their negative reports, by their complaining. It matters who you surround yourself with and who you're listening to, let's see where I want to go now. Let's take a look at verse 31. I'm going to see if I want to go there for just a minute. And you saw how the Lord your God cared for you all along the way as you traveled through the wilderness.

Just as a father cares for his child, now he has brought you to this place. Leave that up there for just a minute. Let's go back just one verse to 29. So when the people came and said all of this to Moses, this is what Moses said. He says, but I said to you, don't be shocked or afraid of them. The Lord your God is going ahead of you. He will fight for you just as you saw him do in Egypt. In Egypt, they were slaves.

It was a horrible time for them. And God delivered them, delivered them miraculously, brought them to a red sea, miraculously split the sea. They walked through on dry ground. I don't know if our minds can truly fathom that. And here they are faced with the land that God is telling them to go into. And there are giants in the land. Again, Moses is trying to tell the people, do you not remember everything that God has already done for you? Why are you so easy to forget?

And when I was studying this, to be honest with you, this is where I had to pump the brakes a little bit. Because I do this. And I know I'm not the only one that does this. Where God tells me to do something new or to step out of my comfort zone. And here I am with excuses of why I can't do it or maybe I shouldn't do it.

When I have a history of God being faithful, of God showing up, of God answering prayers and answering sometimes prayers that I didn't even know needed to be answered, God showed up. And you do as well. It's not just me. I know that there are times that God is telling you, and maybe right now, God is telling you that there's something new for you. And it doesn't have to be scary. It's something good. It's a good future, a good purpose for you.

He's going to show up in miraculous ways in your life. And when that moment of doubt and fear tries to creep in, when that giant stands before you like Goliath before David, you can say, I know my God has been faithful in the past. That's what David did. David didn't approach Goliath in his own strength. He went before Goliath and he said, today I come to you in the name of the Lord. He knew that anointing was in him.

And he said, I remember when I had to fight the bear. I remember when I had to fight the lion. God showed up all those times and he'll show up this time too. And here, this is Moses trying to encourage and remind the people of all the things that God had done in their life. Let's take a look now at verse 32. We're going to go to 39.

It says, but even after all he did, you refused to trust the Lord your God. If you'll leave that right there on the screen. I'm making them work this morning. Sorry. I knew I was. I knew. I was like, I've got to, you know, like stop and go, stop and go. It's okay. With this verse here, you know, God gives you a choice. You are not a robot. You have a free will. So I do want to say this correctly before we go into the next verses and you think that I'm contradicting myself.

You have a choice to obey God or not. And here the Israelites chose not to obey him. So you stand at a crossroad when God is telling you to go in and occupy the land or whatever he's telling you to do. You can obey and you can trust him or you can not obey. And so So this is the aftermath of when they did not obey. It says, but even after all he did, you refused to trust the Lord your God. The next verse says.

Who goes before you looking for the best places to camp, guiding you with a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. Today, we have the Holy Spirit living in us. We don't have to follow a cloud or the fire. We have the Holy Spirit in us, and he's guiding us each and every day. This summer, Pastor Devon has done an amazing job of teaching on the Holy Spirit and how he's our guide. He's our protector. he's our strengthener, and he's in you.

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you have the Holy Spirit guiding you. All right, let's take a look at verse 34. When the Lord heard your complaining, he became very angry, so he solemnly swore, not one of you from this wicked generation will live to see the good land I swore to give your ancestors. Verse 36, except for Caleb, he will see this land because he has followed the Lord completely.

I will give to him and his descendants some of the very land he explored during his scouting mission. Verse 37, and the Lord was also angry with me, talking about Moses, because of you. He said to me, Moses, not even you will enter the promised land. Instead, your servant Joshua, son of Nun, will lead the people into the land. Encourage him, for he will lead Israel as they take possession of it. I find it very interesting, and we'll go back there in just a minute.

I find it very interesting that out of all of those scouts, two people, the two people that didn't complain against God are the ones that he said, you know what, you've chose not to follow me. You chose to stay here and to complain. So you're not going in. It's kind of like that parent that says that to the kid. Like, if you're just going to sit here and complain and complain, then you're not going to get to do X, Y, Z. Here, God is saying, you're not going into the promised land.

And I used to feel sorry for Moses. I was like, God, he's put up with these complaining people for all these years, and now he can't even go into the land. But that's a whole nother message. But here he's saying, Caleb and Joshua, you are going to get to go into the land. Let's go back to the last verse that we had up.

And verse 39, please. And I will give the land to your little ones, your innocent children. You are afraid they would be captured, but they will be the ones who occupy it. So this is a very powerful verse right here. I will give the land to your little ones, your innocent children. You were afraid that they would be captured. The thing that stopped them was fear. They seen the giants. They were afraid that their children would be captured.

But they, these little ones will be the ones to occupy it. You can take that down. I think this verse here. It could be a whole other lesson, but I just want to touch on it just a moment, that the way our society is, I have heard lately concerns and things about the next generation coming up. You know, we all hear it with every generation, but with this generation,

and I think it's so funny that they name the generations. And so I hear all this, you know, Gen Z and Alpha and what's going to happen to these generations, you know. And honestly, they're getting a bad rap. Like, there's so much negative that's been thrown on our youth. And I step back and I think, that's not what I see. That's not what I'm choosing to see. I see this generation that are so bold and passionate.

And can we just undergird them and guide them in the right direction that these will be the generation that will go in and occupy, go in and occupy salvation, saving souls for God's kingdom. Can we just stop and say, Lord, I'm not going to be like this passage and be afraid to go in to this new calling that you're calling all of us in the body of Christ to step into for the latter days.

I'm not going to stop and be fearful that our youth or, you know, whoever is not going to be able to fulfill the calling on their life. I'm going to believe that they're going to rise up and they're going to be able to go in and occupy what God has called them to do.

And so I just wanted to share that with you. I think that there are times that we are fearful and it's not just for us it's fearful because we think about what's gonna happen to our children and what's going to happen to our grandchildren and. God already knows, and he's telling us to continue to go forward and to occupy this land.

And I want to take you to Numbers chapter 13. This is the actual, I guess, live story of what just happened that Moses was recounting. But in Numbers 13, we're going to look at three verses, chapter 13 and verse 30. And we're going to go to 33, and it says, but Caleb, so now we're going to kind of go back and see what was Caleb saying during all of this time. It says, now Caleb tried to quiet the people as they stood before Moses.

Let's go at once and take the land, he said. We can certainly conquer it. That was a different spirit. Let's go to verse 31. But the other men who had explored the land with him disagreed. We can't go up against them. They are stronger than we are. Verse 32, so they spread this bad or negative report through the land among the Israelites. And the land we traveled through and explored will devour anyone who goes in to live there. All the people we saw were huge.

Let's look at verse 33. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers and that's what they thought too how do they know what those Giants thought. How do you know what people are thinking about you? And I contend with this a lot. I'll think, I can't do this because this is what they're thinking. I cannot read your mind. You cannot read my mind. But we set ourselves up for failure so many times because I know what they're thinking about me.

And I feel like a grasshopper in their sight. They were defeated before they ever went into that land because of what they thought about themselves. They truly didn't believe who went with them and who was for them. They felt as grasshoppers before the giants, and that's what they thought that the giants thought of them, so they were already defeated. But Caleb, Caleb said, no, let's go in. I know I can take those those giants. I know I can take this land.

That's the spirit we need. We need a spirit like Caleb and Joshua who are saying, I can do this. I believe later on in the word, Caleb was, I could be wrong, 85. He was like, he was getting up there and he said, hey, that's my mountain. I still want it. Give me my mountain. It's never too late for us. It's never too early or too late if God's told us to go and do something. And so with this, thinking of mountains and giants, you're not the giant slayer.

It's Jesus in you that slays those giants. David was not necessarily a giant slayer. It was the power of the Lord in him that slayed that giant. So I want to encourage you this morning with a few more verses that I want you to meditate upon this week. Because you can get up and you can leave today, and in 30 minutes, you won't remember what I've said. And it's not because you just wanted to forget. That's how we are. If we don't take something and apply it and meditate upon it.

So these verses, these last few verses that I'm going to share with you, I want you to meditate upon them this week. Because I truly believe when you are applying these principles to your life, you can experience true life. Each and every day. Let's take a look at Deuteronomy 5, 6. Deuteronomy chapter 5 verse 6, it says, I am the Lord your God who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery. Here God is speaking to the Israelites, but God is also speaking to you.

We've all been at a place where we feel like we are a slave to something, whether that be something physical or whether that be fear. And God is saying he is with you. He will deliver you. Let's take a look at Philippians 4.13. And even if you think you know these verses, meditate on them. Pray. Spend time with God. Let him reveal a deeper meaning to you. This is the New Living Translation. It says, for I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength.

I actually like some of the other translations because here, Christ is not Jesus' Jesus's last name. Christ is a title and it means the anointed one. And so in other translations, this says, for I can do everything through Christ, which gives me strength. I feel that that's more accurate in a way because Christ, the anointed one in you is what can give you the strength to do all things. I see people take this and they will just be like, I can do all things.

I can do all things. It doesn't matter. And you can, but it's almost incomplete of do you know why you can do all things? Because it's not just you. If you're trying to muster up enough enthusiasm and strength, eventually our human body, we get fatigued. And that's when we get defeated. And we just give up. You know, consistency can be our biggest enemy sometimes. We're just not consistent enough. So here we have to realize we can do all things because the anointed one lives in me.

That anointing is giving me strength. Let's take a look at Romans 8, 28. It says, for we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose for them.

If you'll leave that verse up. This verse, as I was studying it, Tenel is not here today, but we have this joke that we like to kind of pick on Josh a little bit. That's my husband.

Because me and Tenel joke that Josh does not have a care in the world, which is like how we all should be and we pick with him that he floats on this little cloud above us and that he's always like it'll work out everything's gonna be okay and there are times that as his wife in the flesh it makes me angry so angry and I have to say God this man that you gave. Doesn't he care?

It's kind of like Martha and Mary, where Martha's like, do you not care that my sister's literally at your feet, Jesus, worshiping you, but she should get up and worry with me? So, you know, we laugh about this, but here in this verse, as I was studying it, I thought, my goodness, it is biblical that everything is going to work out, you know? Not for those that don't believe in Jesus. There is a difference.

But for us, everything, God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose. So I want you to hold on to that verse this week.

And then Psalms 34, 19. So Psalms chapter, I'm sorry, it's chapter 94, 19. When doubts or anxieties filled my mind, your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer. This is a good one for you to hold on this week if something comes up and you feel like it's a little bit of aggravating news or maybe some bad news and you just feel yourself almost starting to get worked up. When doubts or anxiety filled my mind, your comfort gave me renewed hope and and cheer, and open your mouth and say it.

The word of God is the two-edged sword. Open your mouth and use the two-edged sword. That's part of your armor that God has given us. And the last verse that we're going to go through today is in John, and it's John 14, verse 27 this is jesus speaking it says i'm leaving you with a gift peace of mind and heart and the peace i give is a gift the world cannot give so don't be troubled or afraid so i'm going to close with this verse right here if you'll leave it up for just a minute.

Here, Jesus is telling us that he's giving us a gift. Anybody can hand you a gift, but unless you receive that gift, you don't get to partake of anything that's in that gift, right? So here, Jesus is saying, I have a gift for you, and it's peace of mind and heart. This is peace the world can't give. The world tries to give us peace, but it's incomplete. There are a lot of things going on in our world today. I don't have to share them with you. You hear about it all the time.

But we don't have to focus on all the bad and the doom and the gloom. We should be educated. But here, Jesus is saying, look, there's going to be things that are going to come at you that are going to trouble you. And it is going to cause you to be afraid. So Jesus is not saying you should never feel that emotion of fear. He's saying, I know. I know that it's troubling. I know that it can cause you to be afraid and not know what you're going to do next.

I know there's going to be times that you're going to question. But I am telling you that your hope and your peace is in me. It's in Jesus. Jesus said, I'm leaving you with a gift, peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don't be afraid. Don't be troubled or afraid.