Learning Faith from Spies | Numbers 13 | Lenten Reflections

Transcript

00:00:00:28 – 00:00:31:28
Michael Gewecke
Hello friends. Welcome back to the Pastor Talk podcast. Glad to be with you here today. As we begin a new kind of cadence here for the season of Lent. In case you might not be familiar, within the Christian tradition, there’s this long practice of the days leading up to Easter, taking time of reflection and spiritual discernment as we seek to learn, grow, be honest about ourselves, see the ways in which we ourselves have fallen short.

00:00:31:46 – 00:00:55:31
Michael Gewecke
And in the midst of that process, celebrating the ways that Jesus Christ has been faithful on our behalf and of course, ultimately leading to that Easter promise that on that day Jesus Christ died and rose again for us, and that being the ultimate triumph over sin, death, and even our own brokenness. And as we enter into that season, Clint and I are do we decide we do something a little bit different this year?

00:00:55:32 – 00:01:17:51
Michael Gewecke
We’re going to be moving away from the very long form study series for this season. We’re going to be broadcasting and publishing some of the Sunday night studies that we’re doing and that is going to be engaging with the church and its current state and what it looks like to be a healthy congregation in the midst of a very difficult season for Christianity.

00:01:18:21 – 00:01:48:39
Michael Gewecke
If you would be interested in that conversation, it’s going to come out in all the places where this comes out on YouTube, Facebook, audio, podcast, on our website, all of that links are in the description that said on Thursday, where we normally had our series, we’re going to begin having just a short reflections on the text. We’re going to be looking at some of Clint and my own favorite texts that, you know, not the favorites or not most favorite just we’ve collected some texts that have been meaningful to us.

00:01:48:59 – 00:02:11:02
Michael Gewecke
We’re going to look at them together. We’re going to read them. We’re not going to study them per se. It will reflect on them. It be more of Lenten meditations, they’ll be short. And we certainly hope that there will be something in them that you will find encouraging, challenging and helpful in this season as we make our way towards the ultimate Christian promise of Easter.

00:02:11:02 – 00:02:15:10
Michael Gewecke
And so I know if you feel like that’s a good introduction, but that’s what I’ve got.

00:02:15:34 – 00:02:33:52
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think the idea here is that each of us thought about a couple of key texts, things that we like, things that have been meaningful to us and we want to share them with you with some brief reflections and the idea is that this can be something a little shorter, kind of an encouragement, a devotional as we move through this season of Lent and I start us off today.

00:02:33:57 – 00:02:55:30
Clint Loveall
Michael, one of my favorite passages, I think that I stumbled upon this or at least began and began to work on me probably way back in college. And I’ve really carried it with me since then. And the Book of Numbers, the 13th chapter, and there are a couple of verses I want to read, but let me give some context to the story.

00:02:55:30 – 00:03:21:28
Clint Loveall
The people are on the verge of going into the Promised Land and God tells Moses to send a person, a man from each tribe, and go act as spies. In other words, go check out the land and they spend 40 days. They bring back grapes that are so big they have to carry them on poles between them. The clusters are so big and they come back and they tell Moses the land is great, it’s amazing, it’s wonderful.

00:03:21:48 – 00:03:48:41
Clint Loveall
But then they begin to list the problems. They say there are people there, there are cities, the cities are fortified. And there’s a man named Caleb who says, We should go do this. But the other spies, ten other spies. There’s Joshua joins Caleb says here Caleb quieted the people and said, let us go up at once We are able for the Lord is with us.

00:03:49:39 – 00:04:11:31
Clint Loveall
And then the men who had gone up said we are not able to go against them. They’re stronger than we. So they brought the Israelites an unfavorable report. The land they had spied and they said the land we went through is a land that devours its inhabitants. And the people there we saw are of great size. We saw Nephilim, we saw giants there.

00:04:11:52 – 00:04:36:53
Clint Loveall
And to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them. So the ideas that initially captured me about this text is that you have people who are on the verge of what God has promised, and yet there are some challenges. And what’s interesting in the passage is that the longer they look at the challenges, the bigger those challenges become.

00:04:37:13 – 00:05:17:56
Clint Loveall
They go from There are fortified cities, too. There are giants, and they go from the people there are strong to we have no chance. And I think the saddest line in this text is at the end we seemed like grasshoppers. So you have this movement that the people of God, these spies, these men no longer think of themselves as Israelites, no longer think of themselves as God’s own people, but they seem as grasshoppers to themselves and to others.

00:05:18:07 – 00:05:41:20
Clint Loveall
Now, if you seem like a grasshopper to another, that’s not good. But when you seem like an insect to yourself, that that’s saying something. And so as I read this text through the years, I just have always been moved by Caleb. I’ve been moved by that one voice who stands in opposition to the rest and says, The Lord is with us.

00:05:41:20 – 00:06:01:28
Clint Loveall
Don’t forget that we should go do this. God is calling us to an opportunity and the risk that it takes to take advantage of those kind of opportunities. The faith that it takes to pursue those things. And I don’t know, Michael, that there’s any one thing that jumps out in this text. I just I love the movement of it.

00:06:01:51 – 00:06:32:07
Clint Loveall
I’m I’m struck by the struggle in it, and I’m inspired by the example of Caleb who stands up and says, Yeah, there are challenges, but because God is with us, we should move forward. And he’s he ends up being the voice of the one who doesn’t see himself or themselves as grasshoppers. And I think, you know, there’s just I just find a lot in there too, to chew on.

00:06:32:34 – 00:06:52:40
Michael Gewecke
Well, and I think a key to that, that process that you just laid out is the idea that they are God’s people. And let me explain why I think that’s so key is because when I grew up, I grew up in the Pentecostal and even made my way for some time in the camp for the faith world and this text was read there.

00:06:52:40 – 00:07:21:28
Michael Gewecke
And the way that it was read was this idea that, Hey, look, God wants us to see ourselves as giant, so God wants us to go in and to conquer and to be the people who are successful and who get all of the good things going for them. And I do think there’s a kind of temptation to read the text, as in that the the Israelites missed it, that God wanted them to be these giant conquer all things people.

00:07:21:48 – 00:07:49:19
Michael Gewecke
And I think the the way that you phrased it is essential in the ordering that the failure here is ultimately not for the people to think to themselves that they are greater than they actually are. The failure is that they have failed to trust God, that God has given them his word, that He would be with them, that he would take them into this land, that even though they may be grasshoppers to these people, that their God is faithful.

00:07:49:19 – 00:08:17:09
Michael Gewecke
And that’s a key term because there are moments in our lives, it seems to me, where by all human accounts we are small in the face of our opposition, in the face of our health, concern, in face of the finances or the relational breakdown in face of our inability to fight back against an addiction and all of these things and more, we are actually grasshoppers.

00:08:17:09 – 00:08:44:06
Michael Gewecke
But the failure here isn’t that we are grasshoppers, it’s that we don’t trust and believe that God is able to do above and beyond what we could possibly do for ourselves, that God is great. And I think that is a beautiful, you know, maybe it’s a dark beauty here in a text like this that these folks are in a key, pivotal moment, forgetting the God who’s called them as his own.

00:08:44:18 – 00:08:58:57
Clint Loveall
Yeah, this isn’t this isn’t a difference of opinion, Michael. This is a difference of worldview. I mean, the people say here the men who had gone up said, we are not able to go against these people. They are stronger than we are. That’s true.

00:08:59:49 – 00:09:00:37
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, exactly.

00:09:00:37 – 00:09:41:47
Clint Loveall
They have that right. But what they’ve forgotten is that that’s not the story. Caleb is not arguing. Yes, we’re stronger than we think we are. He’s arguing. We have forgotten that God is with us in this thing. That. That the Lord has promised us that we can do this, that that God will be working on our behalf. And I think, you know, it’s just the thing that fascinates me in the in the flow of this passage is that the longer the people focus on their struggles, the bigger and more dangerous those get and the smaller and less able they get.

00:09:41:47 – 00:10:10:40
Clint Loveall
And I just I find that to be so true when we when we look at the reasons why we can’t do something, when we see the negatives, when we lose heart, almost always it’s because our eyes have gone back to self and off of God. And I, I, I treasure the voice of Caleb here who stands up to that and says, You guys, you are missing the point.

00:10:11:02 – 00:10:33:59
Clint Loveall
Yes. The cities are big. Yes, they’re fortified. Nobody said this would be easy, but God said he would be with us. And that’s the point. That’s that’s the purpose. And so I just have always found this a pretty inspiring story. I think, you know, there’s a lot in it. I’ve I’ve feel like I’ve found new wrinkles in it through the years.

00:10:33:59 – 00:11:04:40
Clint Loveall
I’ve gone back to it time and time again. And I think if you pushed me, I think I would say that Caleb is among my very, very favorite Old Testament characters. We we don’t know a great deal about him. There’s not a lot of information outside of this. There’s a little. But I’ve always found him to be a person that I endeavored to remember and maybe even live up to.

00:11:04:57 – 00:11:07:37
Clint Loveall
So I just I think there’s a lot here.

00:11:08:00 – 00:11:33:36
Michael Gewecke
Well, so I think there’s a temptation here to look at Caleb in verse 30, and then the men, the other spies in verse 31. I think it’s easy to think that Caleb woke up this day eight, his Wheaties, and felt strong and confident, as if that’s all it took. I think look very carefully for we are well able to overcome it, is what Caleb says.

00:11:33:36 – 00:12:02:00
Michael Gewecke
And then these other men in exact opposition. We are not able to go up that that is dynamite. You’re oppose you could not get more opposite than that. And the difference between them is not that they just woke up, one of them was positive and the other was negative. On this day I would venture to put before us that Caleb lived a life of practicing this faith in the small things that no one stands in the day of real trouble.

00:12:02:02 – 00:12:32:06
Michael Gewecke
No one stands as a grasshopper in front of real giant problems and can just suddenly and miraculous ously summon this kind of faith. Caleb and all of the people who I’ve known, like Caleb, are people who have practiced faith in the small things day after day that they’ve built this confidence in God in in the trust over today’s problem or today’s presenting concerns.

00:12:32:06 – 00:13:02:02
Michael Gewecke
And in the midst of that, Clint, you’re able to build a life of trust and confidence in God. And I think there’s something beautiful about this. And the invitation I think that comes to us is to not wait until the day where you stand before giants instead start today, begin practicing faith in the small things so that we, like Caleb, might one day have the courage to see what God calls us to see and not what appears to be the only case to humanize.

00:13:02:02 – 00:13:37:21
Clint Loveall
Yeah. In the next chapter, verse eight there in chapter 14, Caleb says, If the Lord is pleased with us, He will bring us into the land. And I think what Caleb remembers is that it’s not about the Giants, it’s not about the struggles that that those those ultimately those battles are second to the battle. If the Lord is pleased with us and that Caleb understands that our primary task is to live in a way that pleases God and to then to allow God to work on our behalf in some of the struggles of our life.

00:13:37:34 – 00:14:04:10
Clint Loveall
And there’s one other little asterisk to this story. God gets very unhappy with the people. They are reluctant. They refuse to go into the land and God essentially sentences them to the 40 years of wandering. And then in a moment of kind of repentance, they go up on their own right, and they do go into the land and they attack the people and they’re utterly routed there.

00:14:04:13 – 00:14:25:10
Clint Loveall
They’re devastated because God didn’t go with them and told them, No, you’re doing a foolish thing, thereby proving Caleb’s point that it was never about the people’s own strength to start with. It was never about us in the beginning. And if you just as a general rule, as you read scripture, if you keep that phrase, it is not about us in mind.

00:14:26:04 – 00:14:29:18
Clint Loveall
It will serve you well. And I think that’s certainly true in this case.

00:14:30:18 – 00:14:54:03
Michael Gewecke
I think, you know, there’s not much more for me to say here other than to say, as we are in this Lenten season and as we look at a story like this, I think that the first step and it’s an essential step, is to not deny reality. I think Caleb is not denying the reality of the fight that would lie ahead for the people.

00:14:54:25 – 00:15:14:29
Michael Gewecke
What he’s saying is we can trust the God who will carry us forward. We can take God at his word. That’s what Caleb is saying That is different than the other spies who went into the land. They saw the same thing. And and the report that they came back in many ways is substantially the same. But their interpretation is different.

00:15:14:45 – 00:15:22:08
Clint Loveall
Where they take it in. Zacharias greatly based on the perspective that they have and what they do remember and don’t remember.

00:15:22:35 – 00:15:45:57
Michael Gewecke
And so that’s the invitation for you to not run away from the reality of whatever is true in your life right now, whatever your struggle is and whatever place you are leaning into in this season of Lent, don’t deny those realities, but instead begin working and honing and practicing your constant and abiding trust that God is with you.

00:15:46:17 – 00:16:04:49
Michael Gewecke
Even in and through those challenges. And God is able, even if you are not, to bring you to the other side so that what seem to be giants to you are to God, nothing but small challenges along the way. And I think that if we could practice that, that we would do well to do that. This lens.

00:16:04:49 – 00:16:09:10
Clint Loveall
Yeah, we are not grasshopper birds. We are called to much more than that.

00:16:09:48 – 00:16:21:55
Michael Gewecke
Thanks for being with us here today, friends. Hope there’s something to encourage and challenge you in this. We will continue on next Thursday with another reflection like this as we engage text together. I hope you’re blessed and we’ll see you then.

00:16:22:08 – 00:16:44:56
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody. Hey, we want to thank you for listening to this broadcast, but we’re grateful for the support and the connections, the relationships we get to make through some of these offerings. We hope that they’ve been helpful. We know that there are lots of choices that you have, lots of things you can listen to. We want to make you aware of some of what we’re doing, and we greatly appreciate you being a part of it.

00:16:45:12 – 00:17:04:04
Michael Gewecke
Absolutely. We want to just thank you for being one of our audio podcast listeners. It’s amazing to have you with us in the midst of our conversations. Of course, I hope you know that you can find the whole archive of all of these conversations at Pastor Taco. We would love for you to join us there. You can find options for subscribing by email.

00:17:04:17 – 00:17:37:42
Michael Gewecke
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00:17:37:55 – 00:17:54:45
Michael Gewecke
We’d love to hear from you and engage in conversation with you. Thanks again for taking time to be with us. We look forward to our next conversation and can’t wait to see you then.