Pastor Wayne Cordeiro
September 20, 2020 - W2038

"Against All Odds, Part II" 

How Then Shall We Live?

Pastor Wayne Cordeiro

September 26 & 27, 2020 

Aloha, New Hope--Everywhere and Anywhere!

We are continuing our series How Then Shall We Live? and the topic today is "Against All Odds, Part II."  Sometimes, all the odds will be stacked against us--and we question, "What shall we do?"  Today, we'll look in the Old and New Testaments to see the ones with great robust faith who trusted God against great odds!  They are divine mentors, examples of God’s constancy; such as, Gideon who started with 32,000 men to go against a large oppressive Midianite army, and God whittles them down to 300!  If an actuary had been there, they would have told him, "You are roadkill, Gideon, you are history!"  The odds were also against Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Esther, Ruth, etc., all had their faith displayed under great odds--but they emerged with robust faith!

God put their stories in the Bible as examples of divine mentors to show us His constancy!  Last week, in Part I, we learned that God loves to turn the tables when the odds are all against us; and we saw Him as rescuer, savior, and redeemer. God gets all the glory! Today, we are continuing Part II with the story of... 

Caleb. He is one of my respected heroes. He was born at the beginning of the Exodus when the Israelites were leaving Egypt [as slaves] going into the promised land of Canaan. God told Moses to send out a spy party to check out the land; Caleb, at age 40, was chosen from his tribe. Numbers 13:1-2 NIV says: "The Lord said to Moses, ²“Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe send one of its leaders.”

Now, 12 people will see the same land--the same hills and the same valleys; yet, two have a different perspective! Why did the two succeed and the ten fail?  This one story holds for us lessons for the last days:

In these last days at the culmination of the ages, the Bible has by historical accounts, lessons for us living in the present, recorded by those in the past who faced similar situations.  Paul said in 1Corinthians10:11 NIV: "These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come."  

God knew that we would need instruction and example of divine mentors, so in every problem that we will encounter, someone has already experienced the same situation and left us clues and solutions in His word. God doesn’t do things randomly, but strategically.  He won’t simply solve a problem; but He wants to develop a relationship with us through that problem.  If He were to answer our problems immediately, would we have grown at all, or would we feel entitled and stagnate like spoiled children?  When a problem hits, and we don’t know what to do, and we fall on our knees crying out for God’s help, He then says: “You need to cooperate in this.  Here's the part you need to take care of; and I’ll take care of that part.” Then little by little the issue is resolved; and, we are left with a better relationship, a stronger character, a deeper faith, and a greater appreciation of being changed from glory to glory into His image!

Even though God promised the Israelites the land, they still had to contend for every square inch of it!  God promises us in Jeremiah 29:11 NIV: “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans not for your calamity, but for your future and hope.” God’s plans do not happen passively; He is building a relationship along the way so that when we get the promise, we can steward it! The promised land was theirs, but there was a part for them to play in the process for it to be apprehended.  

Prosperity Will Be Our Greatest Test--Not Poverty! We are able to steward poverty because we have nothing; but when God prospers us, are we able to steward that?  Can we steward our skills, capabilities, influence, and finances? God builds character through pain so that when the promise comes, we are able to handle that.

Once I saw a five?carat diamond ring on a lady's hand and noticed that it had only a few prongs holding that huge gem to the setting, and I thought: “That setting holding that beautiful big ol' diamond better be strong because if it's weak, then any little bump would cause that diamond to be lost!”  A wise jeweler would never put a beautiful gem in a weak setting. 

God is wiser, and His promises are a million times more precious than any diamond! He wants to put a diamond in our stewardship but not until the setting (our character, attitude, relationship, disposition, and thinking) is strong enough to steward the diamond!

1. Against All Odds, God Is Faithful 

Moses sent out the 12 spies and asked for a report when they returned:  Numbers 13:27-30 NIV says: "²⁷ They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit.²⁸ But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there.²⁹ The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan. (Notice the contrast juxtaposed between the two accounts.) ³⁰ThenCaleb silenced the people before Moses and said, 'We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.'"  

All 12 spies went into the same land and saw the same landscape; but,10 said, “We can’t” and two said, “We can!” It's interesting.  Ten saw problems; two saw potential.  Same land.  It's not what you see; it's how you define what you see!  If all you see are people's problems and that becomes your summary, then your eyes will be trained to see problems rather than potential.  

Failure comes in with I can't; but success comes with I can! God is changing us from glory to glory into His image, and one of His best tools to change us is pain! When God gives us an assignment, it will always be bigger than what we are able to handle.  If He didn't, we wouldn't need any faith, and we wouldn't grow--so, our assignment will always be beyond our capabilities! What must I learn in order to lay hold of the promises of God?  

Numbers 13:31-33 NIV says: "³¹But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” ³² And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. ³³ We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

2. How Do You See Yourself?  

Often, we're our worst enemies. We say: “I can't do this or that.” We make excuses. We criticize.  We belittle.  We disbelieve. We may be in a bad place right now; but where we are does not define who we are! Where we've been, will not define where we'll go!  We must anchor ourselves to our future (to what could be) and be pulled forward because the best is yet to come! Ten saw problems; two saw potential!  It's not what we see, but how we define what we see.  If we just see problems, we won’t see God’s promises!

Numbers 14:23-24 NIV says: "²³ Not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their ancestors. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it. ²⁴ But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it." 

We don't see with our eyes, but with our brain--where all of our past experiences, maturity, fears are lodged and defined.  It's in our brain that we see an image as friend or foe, or something that will be good or harmful.  Ephesians 4:23 NLT says: "...let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes." Renew the spirit of your mind because that's what you see.  

Matthew 6:22-23 NIV says: "²² “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. ²³ But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!"

When the LORD says, "The lamp of our body is the eye," He's talking about the way we see things and define them in our minds.  A part of our mind is our soul/heart, that's linked to our faith.  We can define something as bad or better.  Proverbs 23:7 NKJV says: "For as he thinks in his heart, so is he."

If all we see are problems, then our eyes will be trained to see problems instead of potential. How do you see your family--as bad or good; your house as a piece of junk or a mansion?  It depends on how we train our eyes by what we watch and read.  By watching and reading bad news, we develop a bad attitude and over the course of 30, 40 years, soon we start looking for problems because that's what we're used to.  It's like an addiction, we can all fall into that trap, but people can rise above anything--even from a most horrifying accident. It’s amazing how people can bounce back and rise above just about anything--it depends on the quality of their thinking!  Life will not give us what we deserve, pray for, or hope for; but life will give us what we settle for!  People will never rise above the quality of their thoughts.  

3. Continue to Trust God's Promises

Even after being in Canaan for 40 years, the Israelites still had one area that needed to be conquered! Caleb was 85 years old and he continued to trust God’s promise.  Joshua 14:10-12 NIV says: "¹⁰ Now then, just as the Lord promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the wilderness. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! ¹¹ I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. (He continued:) ¹² Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he said.” [With the Lord's help, we can do anything.  Philippians 4:13 NKJV says: " I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."]

We're living in a day when things seem to be falling down; we're praying that the elections will turn out well--which is in about 40 days. What is our part to play?  We must move forward!  God will take care of the rest.  You and I are not responsible for the results; but we are responsible for our part, and we will do our part with passion!  Jesus is still on the throne, not the president of the United States.  Jesus is sovereign.  He has given us a promise, but we have a part to play--we need to ask for God's help.   

 Over the next 40 days, let's be like Caleb and Joshua and say, "With God's help, we will be fine. We will contend for every square inch of the promise of God, but we will do it with faith and trust."  Some of us may be facing things in our family that we think are impossible; or maybe we’re in a season of caregiver; or you may have a financial setback or your business may have closed, or you lost your home!  Remember: God is the Alpha and the Omega. The answer is within the problem, and if we avoid or are afraid of the problem, we never will find the miracle for every miracle began with a problem!  

There's only one thing that you'll never be able to rise above--it's the quality of your thinking! If you don't think you can, then you won't!  Your thinking is what keeps you down, and that's the reason the Bible says: "...be renewed in the spirit of your mind" (Ephesians 4:23) and "...have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16b.)  If you want a better future, you must raise the quality of your thoughts and change!  Make a commitment to pray for the next 40 days. Pray a different prayer each day.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:

1. If God is your source, what would you want Him to do for you?

2. List the areas in which you need God’s strength to help you.

3. List your God given abilities and resources, your strengths.

4. What kind of encouragement does Caleb’s story give you?

5. How can you change your thinking to bring about positive results?