Christine Caine - You Are Able - Part 2
Hey, everyone. I am so grateful that you've joined us today. I believe that God has a now word for you. You know, I know we're living in times of great uncertainty, we're living in times of pain and suffering, and there is just so much grief and loss, and pain in the world, and there is so much instability and insecurity, and so many people are facing disappointment, and pain, and discouragement, and disillusionment. But I want to stir your faith today. I want to remind you today that your God is good. That your God does good, that your God is able to work all things together for your good and for his glory. I want to remind you today that God has promises over your life.
And the scripture says that all the promises of God are in Christ Jesus, yes and amen. You and I do not need to just operate according to the spirit of this world. We have the same spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead that lives on the inside of us. Therefore, by the grace of God, we can do all things, through Christ Jesus who strengthens us. We can stand firm in this hour. We can continue to lay a hold of all of that for which Christ Jesus has laid a hold of us. We can continue to press on and up into the purposes of God. I want you to know God's got more for you. God has placed his promise, his purpose on the inside of you, and through Christ, you are well able to inherit the fullness of the promise that God has for you.
We've been looking at the fact that in Numbers 14:24, the scripture says, "But since my servant Caleb has a different spirit, and has remained loyal to me, I will bring him into the land where he has gone, and his descendants will inherit this". But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit, and has remained loyal to me. Other the versions say "Who has followed me wholeheartedly". We want to be a people in the 21st century that have a Caleb spirit, a people that follow Jesus wholeheartedly, unapologetically, uncompromisingly, and a people that have a different spirit.
If you and I are going to navigate the spirit of this age, and what's going on in this world, we need to be a people that have a different spirit. We need to be a people that shine like stars in a dark and perverse generation. We need to March to a different drum beat. We need to see things differently to other people. We need to set our minds on things above, and have our minds focused on eternity, and on Jesus, which affects how we live here on earth in this temporal realm. We want to have a different spirit where people look at us and go, how are you navigating the same pain as us, the same suffering as us, the same trials as us, the same tribulations? How are you living in the same world as us, but you seem to have a different spirit. That's the grace of God. And if you and I are going to inherit the promises of God, we need to be a people that move with a different spirit.
And also we need to have wholehearted obedience. We need to follow Jesus, not just halfway, but all of the way, in a world that promotes, and encourages us to live our best lives, follow our desires, do whatever we want to do, be whatever we want to be, follow the culture of the world, follow the standards of other people, we need to be people that wholeheartedly follow Jesus Christ. If we want to step into the promise and purpose of God, in our generation, for our generation, and for our lives, we need to be people with a different spirit, and we need to be people that wholeheartedly follow God.
We read in verse 30, that while 10 of the leaders that Moses had sent into the Promised Land to spy out the land that God had promised them, I'm giving you this land, I'm giving it to you. Not, I might give it to you, but I am going to give it to you. He sent 12 leaders in to spy out the land, 10 came back and they just said, you know what? It's too hard. It's just too hard. The giants are too big. The cities are too fortified. We're outnumbered. They're basically saying, God, you know what? The giants are bigger than your power. God, the fortified cities are stronger than your strength. God, the fact that they've got numerical numbers that, you know, exceed our numbers, it means, God, they're more powerful than you. Essentially they were saying, God, you're just not big enough, or strong enough, or powerful enough to overcome our enemies.
And in the middle of their fear, and in the middle of their doubt, and in the middle of their negativity, and we are living in a time on the earth where you see it through social media, you hear it in people's conversations. The narrative of the day is dominated by fear. Man, fear sells. Fear gets clicks. Fear gets likes, fear gets follows. Our people love fear. We just throw fear out there, create an us and them, create an imaginary enemy, and then you could just get all the crowds just wild up. Fear. Fear, doubt, insecurity. It just sells, and it thwarts the promise and the purpose of God. Caleb was listening to these other leaders going, what are you talking about?
So it says, then Caleb quieted the people in the presence of Moses, and he said, "Let's go up now and take possession of the land, because we can certainly conquer it". He's like, we can. God said, we can. So in the midst of the fear, Caleb tries to get them focused on the promise of God again. He tried to stop in that moment the fear and the doubt, and the negativity. He tried to bring them back to the Word of God, to the promise of God, to the hope of God, to the purpose of God. I find that out there, I don't want to enter the narrative of the fear, and the gossip, and the slander, and the calling out, and the canceling, and the dragging people down. I want to remind people of the promise of God, of the hope of God, of the purpose of God, of the goodness of God, of the love of God, of the mercy of God.
Caleb didn't buy into the narrative of fear, and doubt, and unbelief. He didn't buy into the, however, we can't do it. The however was not an option for him, because he chose to remember God's promise. God said, I'm giving you this land, so however, doesn't even enter the conversation. It's like where the other 10 leaders were like, yes, God, it's a land flowing with milk and honey. Yes, here is the fruit, however. However, the giants are really big, the city's are fortified, we are outnumbered. And Caleb's like think, what has however got to do with God. God is still God. The promises of God still prevail. The purpose of God still prevails. The Word of God still prevails.
I don't know what however may be in your life today, but it's time to drop the however. You've forgotten the promise, and you have made the problem bigger than the promise. We need to drop the however, and we need to focus on the goodness, and the faithfulness, and the strength of God. You see, the majority were shouting, we can't do it. It's too hard. Man, they were posting it. If it was 21st century, they'd be posting it. However, we can't do it. This is what the Word of God says, but however, we can't live it. However, it's too hard. However, it's impossible. However, we can't do it. But the voice of God was the voice that was reverberating in Caleb's ears. His voice, God's voice was louder than the voice of the majority.
And if you are going to step into the promise of God, God's voice has got to be stronger in your ear than the fear of the majority. Sometimes you've got to silence the naysayers, and immerse yourself in the Word of God, in the presence of God, so you can be filled with the power of God, and the Word of God. So you can stand on the truth of God to step into the promise and the purpose of God. You've got to silence the naysayers in your life. They said, you know, we're grasshoppers, in verse 31 to 33, but the men who had gone up with him responded, listen to this. "We can't attack the people, because they are stronger than we are". So they gave a negative report to the Israelites about the land they had scouted.
Can you believe that? The land we passed through to explore is one that devours its inhabitants. I find it humorous that they're saying this when they came back and they weren't devoured. I'm like, honey, you were not devoured, so like what are you talking about? It 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 came from the Nephilim. To ourselves we seemed, here is the line, and so many of you feel like this right now. To ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and we must have seemed the same to them. They don't even know for sure. I think I seemed like a grasshopper to them, because I seemed like a grasshopper to me.
It is so amazing how you view you affects how you think others view you. And he was like, well, we just look like grasshoppers, just like we were just too small, that they were just going to defeat us. And some of us, we feel the same. Man, I feel like a grasshopper in my own eyes, so surely that's what I must look like to them. So the majority said, we cannot do it, the people are stronger than we are. But they were not stronger than God. Here's the point, it doesn't matter. It actually doesn't matter if the people were stronger than them, they're not stronger than God. God was the one that was going to go to battle for them. They forgot that God was the one that was going to give them the Promised Land. They gave a negative report, and the report kept an entire generation out of their purpose.
See, they no longer saw themselves through they saw themselves in light of the giants. It all became about them basically, and it no longer became about God. And so they assumed they looked like grasshoppers in their enemy's eyes. See, you can make unbelievably inaccurate assumptions about a situation when you no longer view it through the lens of faith in God's promises, and you begin to assess it in light of your own abilities, or limitations, or the circumstances of the world around you. Our vision and our perspective becomes distorted when we stop viewing it through the lens of faith. Caleb said, we could do it. We could surely do it. Both were right.
I want you to catch this. Both were actually right, because without God we can't take the land. Without God we can't fulfill the promises, and with God we can. So 10 of the leaders walked by sight, and two walked by faith. The majority left God out of the equation, the majority focused on the problem, and two of the leaders focused on the promise. So what you choose to focus on in this moment will determine whether you inherit the promises of God for your life. It's going to take courage, and it's going to take strength to not go with the majority perspective, because the majority will always get you focused on the wrong thing. This is why I limit what I view on social media, because I don't want to just go with the crowd, because they will affect and limit my perspective.
When I was at University in Sydney, I remember they set up this example. One of the professors put this on the whiteboard, and he said, "What's that"? And you know when he said, "What do you see"? All of us immediately said, "We see a black dot". And he laughed and he said, "Yes, it's true. There is a black dot on this whiteboard, but there's also a whole lot more white paper than there is black dot". But most of us are so focused on the black dots in our lives that are screaming for our attention. The black dot that says, you're not good enough, you're not from the right socioeconomic background, you're not talented enough, you've made mistakes, you've failed. We allow the screams of the black dots to drown out the sound of God's promise expressed to us through his word.
But God is much bigger than the black dots in our life. And what we need to do is learn to keep our perspective, and to keep our focus on all of the white paper, the bigness of God, not the smallness of the dots that are trying to distract us and divert our attention, our mistakes, our failures, our inadequacies, our insufficiencies, our insecurities are going to try to take us away. They're going to scream, you are not good enough, you're not talented enough, you're not eloquent enough, you're not resourced enough, you're not educated enough, you are just not enough. It will scream at us, and we've got to focus on the promise, and the purpose of God for our life. I would never have walked into the purpose of God if I looked at the future through the or of the majority report.
It takes courage to believe God. It takes faith to believe God, and to look at the future through the lens of faith. But we are a people of faith. It doesn't always make sense to hold onto the promise. I wonder what do you see? Did you see a black dot, or did you see white paper? Because there was always just more white space than there is black dot. Man, we got to stop focusing on the small dots in life, because we're going to end up missing God. We're going to end up missing God in light of our eternity, so much that arrests our attention, and the attention of a generation in are the small black dots in life. The stuff that's screaming for our attention, that actually is of no eternal significance.
I want to remind someone today, impossible is where God starts. Miracles are what God does. The sad thing about this story in Numbers 13 is that all of these men were leaders. They were leaders. Send out one man who is a leader among them from each of their ancestral tribes. Moses sent them from the Wilderness of Paran, at the Lord's command. All the men were leaders in Israel. The best of the best, the top of the top. So the most telling part of this narrative for me, is the fact that all of the scouts were leaders. These were the best, the best. Each tribe selected a leader. These were the names of the men Moses sent to scout out the land. And nothing suggests that Joshua or Caleb were any more special, or any stronger, or any more gifted, or any more talented, or any more anointed than any of these other leaders.
You know, we should have known every name and every leader, we only know though the name of Joshua and Caleb. You know, nobody has heard of the other names. Every one of those other 10 names no one names their kids that. They died after chapter 14. We don't hear about them again in scripture. So their perspective thwarted their destiny, and that of up to 2 million people, people that we don't even remember their names anymore. People that we should be naming our children after today, just like we do Joshua and Caleb. So there was 16.6% of that leadership team with a different spirit. Only 16.6% fulfilled their purpose, and entered the Promised Land. All of these 12, 100%, saw the same thing, walked the same path, had the same promises, held the same fruit, but they had two different perspectives and that determined their destiny.
Today on the other side of the screen, I've come for the 16.6%. Why? Because 16% is all you need for a tipping point. The diffusion of innovation theory describes how an innovation spreads throughout a whole social system. This theory proposes that different groups of individuals adopt innovations at different times, and that those who adopt them early on, influence the adoption of all the others. So your faith has the capacity to influence everyone in your school, your university, your community, your workplace. When a certain percentage of the people adopt an innovation, it reaches a tipping point, and it begins to spread throughout the whole system.
So when a new innovation is introduced into a society, say like a new smartphone, early adopters they're the ones that normally they're about 16% of the population. So as they use their new smartphones, they show it to all of their friends, they talk about it with everyone on their social media, and around their world. So then the next script says, hey, I want to give this product a shot as well. And eventually those who have not yet adopted this new phone the late adopters, they decide that if it must work, well if everyone else is using it, so they get it. And the innovation makes its way through the rest of the system. That's how it works. So this understanding shows that influencing a system can be done by 16% of the people, as the first 16% begin to use the new innovation, the remaining groups are influenced as well.
So as we step into the future, it's going to take 16% of us with a different spirit to live differently, to act differently, to see things differently, and to help others come into their spiritual Promised Land. Caleb had a different spirit. Not alike that word, different spirit, it's a spirit not alike in character or quality. It's distinct in nature. Caleb did not deny, he didn't minimize, he didn't dismiss the reality of the situation. He chose to focus on the promise and the voice of God. So in life what you look for, you will find, where you look, you will go, and what you behold you will become. Every generation has their own giants to fight, both internally and externally. Internally, you're going to have to fight the giants of fear, and doubt, and insecurity, and disappointment, and bitterness, and various traumas, and injustices. They are real giants. And externally, there are cultural giant.
Secularism, pluralism, antithetical views to the Christian faith and values. It's not easy to be a person of faith in a culture that can view us as maybe dangerous, or bigoted, or irrelevant, or stupid to believe the gospel. It's a real thing. It's not easy to portray the beauty of Jesus in our colleges and our communities, when at times the reputation of the church has been tarnished by abuse, and racism, and sexism, or a lack of love towards the poor, or the marginalized, or indifference to caring about the planet, or justice. I get it. We can either pull back and not proclaim the gospel, or we can faithfully live out what we believe with much love and grace, believing God despite the cultural moment we find ourselves in. It's going to take a different spirit. It's going to take a different perspective, a different attitude.
The one out of six who see what everyone else sees, but is not overwhelmed by it. The one out of six who face the same cultural giants, but won't bow down to them. The one out of six who face the same temptation to compromise, but will not compromise. The one out of six who will face the same pressure to doubt to disbelieve and deny Christ, but will not do this. The one out of six who will make God bigger than the challenges. The one out of six who will believe God is who he says he is, and will do what he says he will do. The one out of six who will believe God to do what he said. The one out of six that will remain courageous, and faithful in difficult times. The one out of six who will follow Jesus wholeheartedly.
The one out of six that believe God, and will be able to say, we are well able. 16.6% who will follow Jesus wholeheartedly. There's a difference between following Jesus wholeheartedly, as opposed to halfheartedly or intellectually. Six times the scripture says that Caleb followed God wholeheartedly. His heart was totally set on following God. He was all in when it came to following God. You know, the fact is that it's going to take an all in generation that have got a different spirit, and choose to follow God wholeheartedly. If 16.6% of us agreed to do that, we can reach a tipping point, and totally impact the culture around us in Jesus' name.