"Facing Our Giants"

Numbers 13:1-2, 17-22, 25-33
Dr. Anne M. Cameron
November 14, 2010
Lake Highlands Presbyterian Church

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!  Let your gentleness be known to everyone.  The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

¹ 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."

³ So at the LORD's command Moses sent them out from the Desert of Paran.  All of them were leaders of the Israelites.

¹⁷ When Moses sent them to explore Canaan, he said, "Go up through the Negev and on into the hill country.  ¹⁸ See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many.  ¹⁹ What kind of land do they live in?  Is it good or bad?  What kind of towns do they live in?  Are they unwalled or fortified? 20 How is the soil?  Is it fertile or poor? Are there trees on it or not?  Do your best to bring back some of the fruit of the land."  (It was the season for the first ripe grapes.)

²¹ So they went up and explored the land from the Desert of Zin as far as Rehob, toward Lebo Hamath.  ²² They went up through the Negev and came to Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, lived.  ²⁵ At the end of forty days they returned from exploring the land.

²⁶ They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land.  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."

³⁰ Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, "We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it."

³¹ But 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.

The story of the Nephilim is a very strange one.  You could go all your life in church and Sunday school and never once encounter the Nephilim.  Don't worry, this does not mean you are Biblically illiterate!  (You may be Biblically illiterate, but this is not the litmus test.)  The Nephilim are really obscure. The Bible only mentions them two times.  Once in Numbers, and once in Genesis.  Genesis 6:1-4 describes how divine beings married human women.  The resulting offspring were the Nephilim.  They are monstrous and very large.  In Genesis, the Nephilim represent creation gone wrong.

The backdrop for the mention of the Nephalim in the book of Numbers is the story of the Israelites wandering in the desert.  You'll recall that Moses led the people out of Egypt.  God brought the Israelites out of slavery.  For forty years they moved around the Sinai Peninsula.  Forty years in the desert!  (This proves beyond a doubt Moses was a man, because you know men cannot ask directions.  They would rather die in the desert than ask directions!)

Finally, the Israelites are on the threshold of the promised land.  They are knocking on the door.  They are ALMOST THERE!

In this story of the exploration of Canaan, the Nephilim represent the Israelites' greatest fears.  The Nephilim are the reason the Israelites resist what God is telling them to do.  God has said, "Go and occupy the land I have given you; it is a land flowing with milk and honey!" Yum!

Moses sent scouts to explore this promised land and bring back a report.  Did you catch what most of these scouts said about the land of Canaan?  "The land we explored devours those living in it.  All the people we saw there are of great size." Who would want to go to a place where the land swallows up people whole and giants roam freely?  God's promises aside, milk and honey notwithstanding, the Israelites do not want to go there.

Strange as this story is, it speaks to us here at LHPC today.  Even now.  Especially as we look to the God-beckoning future.  Particularly as we find ourselves challenged to new ministries, missions, and outreach. The Nephalim are frightening.  The Nephilim are good reason not to go too far into a land that we do not yet know, even when we believe that new land holds great promise.  Even we believe God is calling us there.

Even when we are commanded to go, we resist, because the Nephilim terrify us.  The Nephilim represent our greatest fears, the obstacles that block us from obeying God's insistent command we keep moving, keep going, and keep seeking others for Christ.

Who are our giants?  (There are many, but I am going to talk about three.)

#1 There is the giant named Failure.  We fear Failure.

We fear we won't be able to truly occupy the land. We won't be able to move into the ministries God calls us towards.  We won't grow fast enough.  We will run out of resources.  We fear failure.

We fear we are no longer relevant in a culture marked by individualism and private spirituality.

We may fear we will die.  We worry we won't count.

All our efforts, the efforts of so many who have gone before us, will have been in vain.  We may fail at bringing new souls to Christ.  We fear the giant Failure.

#2 Almost as equally daunting, though, is the giant Success.  We fear success.  We do.

When we truly move into the land God has promised, we will have to change. We will find out what is really going on in our neighborhood, and our neighborhood is changing.  If we are truly scouting things out, we will encounter all the different parts of Lake Highlands.

There are people like us, and there are others.  There are homeowners and there are renters.  There are educated people and people struggling to learn English.  New people are going to be different from us.  They will have new perspectives, different needs.  What if they begin to outnumber us?  Yes, make no mistake, we fear the giant Success.

# 3 is the giant Hard Work!  We fear the process of getting from here to there.

We're tired.  It's hard.  We are stretched thin as it is.  Some of you have been working on this for forty years!  The task of bringing many others into a relationship with Christ is too big; it is easier to avoid it.  Easier?  Yes.  Faithful?  No.

I have to admit this is the Giant I struggle with most.  It would be easy to stay put, take care of business as usual here on the edge of the promised land.  My days and nights would be so much simpler if I focused only on "our own" and put off the future God has planned for us.  I fear I will burn out.

It would be so much easier to stay back here in the desert, but I can't do it.  Constitutionally I can't do it.  Spiritually I can't do it.  Because God commands us to go into the land God has promised, and we have to obey.

You have been challenged to reach out to friends and family and acquaintances, even strangers!  You have been asked to speak of your faith and our church and what it means to you.  No one is exempt from God's call to move into a new land filled with more believers and more opportunities to witness.  The Giants loom large, though, and I know sometimes you are afraid.

But let's not forget Caleb! Caleb was just one person!  He held the minority report.  He had a different view.  His vision extended into the promised land.  His view was faithful to God's command.  Of all those people wandering around in the desert, including Moses, Caleb was one of the few who actually got to live the promised land!

Along the way there are many milk and honey moments, THANK GOD!, and milk and honey days, Thank God!, and milk and honey seasons. . .

There is the milk and honey of church leadership with the will to cut costs and re-prioritize spending.  There is the sweet balm of a (mostly) balanced budget.

There is the milk and honey of new staff and leaders with a broader perspective and God-given talents to share.

There is the milk and honey of some extravagantly generous givers among you, and yes, even the milk and honey of God challenging the majority of you who need to give much more.

The sweet taste of being able to provide clean water for a community far away from here!  And the promise of being able to do that again and again and again.

The nourishing influx of new members with passion and energy.

The continued faithfulness of many here who have toiled all their lives.

The fertile ground of you who do multiple ministries and begin new ones.

The milk and honey creating a safe space for neighborhood children, growing a diverse youth group, welcoming immigrant members, increasing hands-on mission. . . All of these are the fruit----the grapes----of God moving among us, and our responding to God's command.

Don't forget the sounds of babies in worship---this is music to my ears!  I'm mixing metaphors, not exactly milk and honey, but you get my drift.

Celebrate with me the small milk and honey moments along the way:  a record number of first time guests on a Sunday not Christmas/Easter, a record number of baptisms this year; a record number of youth at a youth event, a record number of persons joining at the same time!   All of these are happening right now, right here, because God has been preparing us and we have been venturing into the strange land of giants.  We have been facing our giants.  God is answering our prayers and blessing us already.

If you have not been getting out into the land, if you have yet not ventured forth, God is asking you to do so.  Only you can do what only you can do!  Every single one of us can pray.  Even the homebound can make phone calls and write notes.  Most of you can step up and get involved in something you haven't yet done.  Most of you can give more.  Most of you can.  God is asking you to face your own giants and do just that.  You will be blessed.  God will multiply what you do, and God bless us all because of your efforts.

We have run from the clans of giants.  We have cowered in the shadow of the Nephilim.  But God will not allow the Nephilim to conquer us!

We are chosen and loved and supported, and we need not fear.  God has promised to always be with us, and God knows the Nephilim will not prevail.  When we face them, when we refuse to allow them to keep us from doing God's work, we experience peace and joy and growth beyond all imagining.  Do you see the land flowing with milk and honey.  It is ours for the taking.  We are right there at the threshold. Are you coming?

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Numbers 13:21 Or toward the entrance Nimbers 13:23 Eshcol means cluster; also in verse 24.