RISK - Get Out of Your Safe Zone 1

Audio on demand from Vision Christian Media. You can't move forward by standing in place. Leaving your comfort zone and stepping out in faith is a risk that every believer must take.

But how? Today on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah explores this question so vividly illustrated in the Old Testament story of Caleb, who didn't play it safe but had full confidence in God. Here's David to introduce today's message, Risk.

Get out of your safe zone. Well, thank you for joining us. We are studying what it means to go forward, discovering God's presence and purpose in our tomorrows. So far we have talked about the importance of dreaming and praying and choosing and focusing. Today we're going to talk about risking.

And let me just be upfront with you. Risk is just another name for faith. Risk is about getting out of your safe zone and living in the faith zone.

That will be our discussion for today and tomorrow. And you know, that's so important for all of us, especially right now. We're a little bit frightened. We're a little bit nervous. We've been through a time in our lives like nothing we've ever experienced before in our whole history.

Perhaps in the history of our nation. We're taking baby steps to walk back into normality. And we're a little bit worried about taking a risk. I'm not talking about taking foolish risks, but I'm saying if you want to walk with God, God's path doesn't lead through the safe zone. You have to walk with him in the faith zone. And we're going to talk about that today and tomorrow. Well, let's get started. We're talking about getting out of our safe zone.

This is about risk. Jean Hansen and her husband, Steve, were celebrating their anniversary at a beautiful beach resort in St. Lucia. One morning, they decided to walk the resort's wellness trail, a one mile path with stations for exercises like pull-ups, a balance beam, and even an elevated rope bridge. At each station, they did the activity. Then they came to the rope bridge. Steve crossed it easily, but Jean, she hesitated.

All I could see, she said, were big gaping holes on the sides, large enough to fit my entire leg through with one slip of the foot. Fear overcame her, and she backed off and walked away frustrated and disappointed in herself. The next day, she and Steve took a trip on a 24-foot sailboat. It was Jean's first time sailing, and she was thrilled and exhilarated, even when the boat was in choppy waters. Experienced sailors were in charge, but Jean knew this adventure was far more dangerous than the rope bridge she'd backed away from the day before.

So the following morning, Jean and Steve took the wellness trail again, and this time, she said, I didn't say anything. I just walked up the ladder, and I went for it. I didn't stop to look at it and wonder how I was going to accomplish it.

I just paused for a second on the platform, grabbed the rope, and started putting one foot in front of another. Before I knew it, I was across feeling very victorious about myself. Most of us, if we're honest, think of risk as a negative situation we should avoid, but risk is a part of life, and it's a big part of faith. Not every risk is worth taking, but if you're too overwhelmed by fear to correctly assess a situation, you'll miss many opportunities for growth. Have you been playing it safe? Too safe?

If forward is the direction you want to go, be prepared to take some faith-based risks. Being a follower of Christ in today's world is not safe, and it isn't intended to be. Think of the people in Scripture who took great risks. Moses wasn't playing it safe when he returned to Egypt to confront Pharaoh. Gideon wasn't playing it safe when he dismissed almost all of his army. David wasn't playing it safe when he strode up to Goliath.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego weren't playing it safe when they refused to bow down to the image Nebuchadnezzar had erected in the Babylonian plains. Esther wasn't playing it safe when she put her life on the line to save her people, telling Mordecai, if I perish, I perish. And then Peter wasn't playing it safe either when he got out of the boat to walk across the water to Jesus. What I'm saying is, you can't play it safe. Not if you want to seize tomorrow and accomplish the dreams that God places in your heart.

In the work God has given me through the years, I'll be honest, left to myself, I probably would have erred too often on the side of safety and security. But there's a man in the Bible who inspires me to keep stepping out and taking risks with wholehearted confidence in the Lord. I'm convinced you'll be able to go forward, unafraid to take risks, if you can embody his Spirit. That man is Caleb.

Do you know him? Many people don't know a lot about Caleb because he's in the Bible in only 30 verses. What tremendous verses they are, and they convey a lot about this man. In this message, I'm going to show you how this Old Testament hero left a legacy of courage for you.

A powerful example of risk-taking, future-grabbing grace. In the book of Numbers, Moses sent 12 men, Joshua, Caleb, and 10 others, as an advance party to reconnoiter the promised land. These men left the safety of their encampment, forted the Jordan River, slipped into Canaan, and their mission was to make notes of the land, observe the enemy, study the fortifications, estimate the population, and bring back enough intelligence to aid Moses as he planned the coming invasion of the land God had promised to the Israelites.

The Bible tells the story this way, Numbers 13, 21, and 22. So, they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin, and they went up through the south and came to Hebron, and the descendants of Anak were there. The city of Hebron had been the ancestral home of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but now it was inhabited by an evil tribe of huge warriors known as the descendants of Anak. The sight of these warriors terrified these spies, and they quickly harvested some pomegranates and figs from the orchards of Canaan, and two of them lugged back an enormous cluster of grapes, carrying it on a pole between them. Imagine the excitement when the spies returned to Kadesh Barnea. Their mission had taken 40 days, and nobody knew if they had survived or perished, and day after day, sentries at Israel's parameters watched for them, and now they're back, all of them safe and sound. But as you know, they were not united. Most of them wanted to live in the safe zone.

So let's take them and some other stories along the way, and let's talk about how to live in the safe zone. In professional football, NFL coaches studied the smallest statistic to find every possible advantage. But according to authors John Tierney and research psychologist Roy Baumaster, many coaches make the same mistake week after week. This happens on fourth down and short situations. When their team only needs a yard or two to keep possession of the ball, nine times out of ten, instead of the riskier decision to try to win by going for another score, the coach settles for trying not to lose, and he sends the kicker in, and they punt the ball to the other team. Now, statistics show that trying for the goal and the win is actually the better way. So why do coaches punt on fourth down?

Well, Tierney and Baumaster concluded there's a factor involved. They call it the power of bad. Simply put, our brains are wired to give more importance to negative aspects than positive ones. So bad events influence our decision-making more than positive ones.

That means that no matter how much we want to succeed, avoiding bad can easily become our primary goal. Back to the coach. He knows if he chooses the risky play and he fails, and the other team goes on to score, the fans and the press will be unforgiving. Sportscasters will denounce him as reckless, and they will use phrases like loss of momentum and the Turning Point in the game. If the team loses by a narrow margin, that failed fourth down attempt will be blamed for the loss, and it will be replayed endlessly afterwards. And that image of potential failure is hard to overcome, so the coach plays it safe.

The fear of failure has lost many, many games. Have you ever heard of these names? Shamua, Shafat, Eagle, Palti, Gadiel, Gadi, Amir, Sethur, Nabi, and Qul?

I haven't heard of them before, have you? No, because these are the names of the 10 spies who risked their lives in an espionage mission only to lose their heart and forget to trust in God, and they came back with a negative report. They were discouraged. They disheartened the people of Israel. Those men made three terrible mistakes, and we can make these mistakes ourselves if we're not careful. They fell into three traps, and you and I have to avoid these at all costs.

First of all, they maximized the opposition. Oh, how we love to do this. God wants you to go forward. He has adventures, challenges, and victories, and meaningful tasks for you. And as you look at the bridge to your future, are you looking at the ropes? Are you looking at the holes? In Numbers 13, the 10 spies magnified every threat they looked at. They looked at the bridge God had designed for the future, and they saw only the holes. The Bible says, the men who had gone up with him said, we are not able to go up against these people, for they are stronger than we. And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, the land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it were men of great stature. There were giants of descendants of Anak who came from the giants, and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight. Notice all the holes the 10 unbelieving spies fixated on.

Here's what they said. Number one, we are not able to go against these people. Number two, they are stronger than we are. Number three, the land devours its inhabitants. Number four, the men are of great stature. Number five, the men are giants. Number six, they are from Anak, the land of giants.

Number seven, we are like grasshoppers in our eyes, and we are like grasshoppers in their eyes. If you propose to move forward in life, especially if you aspire to leadership, you're going to have to learn what it means to take risks, to live by faith. Even history's most celebrated leaders had to learn this lesson. There is risk in going forward.

There is no traction without friction. At the beginning of the Civil War, no military career looked brighter than General George B. McClellan's. Some called him the Napoleon of the American Republic. Lincoln made him commander of the Army of the Potomac, but he later promoted him to be the first general in chief of the Union Army.

McClellan cut a stunning figure on horseback. He looked like he'd been selected by central casting for the role, but he also regularly overestimated the size of the enemy, magnifying the threat. The more daunting the enemy grew in his mind, the less confidence he showed in the field. He saw the holes instead of the ropes. Although he consistently organized and prepared, he rarely got around to fighting. When he did, his objective seemed to be avoiding a loss, not winning the battle.

Lincoln finally wrote McClellan and said to him, if you don't want to use the Army, I would like to borrow it for a while. Remind you of the 10 spies? More importantly, now is a good time to ask yourself if it reminds you of, well, you. Whenever we compare ourselves to the opposition, instead of comparing the opposition to God, we can get into the state of fear.

If that's a pattern in your life, the first step forward is to recognize it. One of the things we do when we refuse to risk, or when we try to keep from losing instead of trying to win, is we maximize the opposition. Number two, we minimize the opportunities. While the 10 spies maximized the opposition, they also minimized the incredible opportunity that God had given them. They only had a dim perception of what God had in store for them. They believed in their hearts that God was setting them up for destruction, and their unbelief was contagious.

You can read it for yourself in Numbers chapter 14. So all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night, and all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron. And the whole congregation said to them, if only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness, why has the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims?

Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt? You see, their perception of God would be laughable if it weren't so tragic. After all the Lord had done for them, he had delivered them from slavery. He had parted the wide waters of the Red Sea. He'd accompanied them with cloud and fire. He'd given them his law. He'd given food and drink in the wilderness.

He had promised to make them a great nation in a land flowing with milk and honey, and all they could do was quickly forget. More importantly, how can we? When we forget all the blessings God has provided for us in the past, we're apt to minimize his ability to guide us in the future. We may even dread the future and where we think God is leading us, and so we're exactly where the devil wants us. He puts us in a place of avoiding risks and playing it safe.

Oh, we of little faith. What I'm telling you is this. Don't minimize the opportunities God has for you in the future. Don't put all your effort into avoiding loss or turn your face away from the future.

God has planned for you. Instead, go forward with confidence and courage and do the task God has set for you. Don't maximize the opposition.

Don't minimize the opportunities, because if you do, you will jeopardize the objective. In their unbelief, men and women, the Israelites discarded the precious, powerful future that God had for them. The act of defiant unbelief incurred a terrible penalty. First of all, the punishment for bringing back an evil report to the people of God was meted out in two severe sentences. First, the 10 men who gave the evil report were killed immediately by a plague.

Numbers 14. Now the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation complain against him by bringing a bad report of the land, those very men who brought the evil report about the land, they died by the plague before the Lord. But Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, remained alive of the men who went to spy out the land.

Second, not only did the men who brought the report die, but all the people who listened to the report, they were sentenced as well. Listen to Numbers 14, 29, and 30. The carcasses of you who have complained against me shall fall in the wilderness. All of you who were numbered according to your entire number from 20 years old and above, except for Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, the son of Nun, you shall by no means enter the land which I swore I would make you dwell in.

How very sad. I mean, the blessing of God was just waiting to be poured upon his people, and it was forfeited by their unwillingness to risk obedience to his command. Let me ask you a question today. What is your Canaan? What does God want you to tackle? What does he want you to possess?

What does he want you to accomplish for him? Unbelief forfeits your opportunities and jeopardizes your objective. So, let's keep seizing the moments God provides for us with childlike wonder.

If God said it, I believe it, and that settles it, and I'm going to do it. How to live life in the safe zone. So, let's talk now about how to risk life in the faith zone. That brings us back to Caleb.

He and Joshua represent the minority opinion among the spies. He had pleaded with the people. He said, let us go up. Let us take possession.

We are well able to overcome it. Imagine Caleb's frustration when the whole nation shouted down his words. But God heard, and as the decades passed, one by one, the older Israelites passed away, and their bodies dotted the desert. Even the aged Moses ascended Mount Pisgah and died. Joshua and Caleb were the sole survivors of their generation. When the day came to lead Israel into the Promised Land, they were as young in spirit as 40 years before. Joshua succeeded Moses.

He led the Israelites across the Jordan River into the land of Canaan. And as we read through the book of Joshua, we find conquest after conquest and allotment after allotment. And then we open our Bibles to Joshua chapter 14, and who should we meet again but my favorite man, Caleb. He made a trip to see his old friend and fellow spy, Joshua, and this is what he said to him. You know the word which the Lord said to Moses, the man of God concerning you and me and Cades Barnea? I was 40 years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Cades Barnea to spy out the land, and I brought back word to him as it was in my heart. Nevertheless, my brethren who went up with me, the heart of the people, they made them to melt, but I followed the Lord my God.

So Moses swore on that day saying, Surely the land where your foot has trodden shall be your inheritance and your children's forever because you have wholly followed the Lord my God. Now friends, with the passing of years, Caleb's faith had grown. His mind was sharp, his spirit was strong, his enthusiasm was like a child's. The promise of God was still the obsession of his heart. I believe there are four reasons for this, and they help us understand what is involved in living a life of risk.

If you don't get anything else out of what I'm saying today, get these four things because these are the key to your living a life out of the safe zone. First of all, risk-takers stay exuberant about their lives. The first reason has to do with Caleb's exuberance.

He told Joshua, The Lord has kept me alive these 45 years, and ever since the Lord spoke this word to Moses, while Israel wandered in the wilderness, and now, listen to this, here I am this day, 85 years old, and I am as strong this day as I was on the day that Moses sent me. In other words, Caleb said, I'm 85, but I should be 40 because I have the same energy, the same enthusiasm, the same exuberance about life that I had 45 years ago. Psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison wrote these words, Exuberance carries us places we would not otherwise go, across the savanna, to the moon, into the imagination. By its pleasures, exuberance lures us from our common places and quieter moods, and after the victory, the harvest, the discovery of a new idea or an unfamiliar place. It gives ascendant reason to venture forth all over again.

That's a description of Caleb, my friends, and I hope it's a description of you. It is very hard to go forward without the kind of joyful zest for life that Caleb had. That same joyful eagerness is available to you and to me. For me, you say?

Yes, it is. You can't lose the wonder of the worshipful, promise-filled life Christ died to give you. You can ask God for joy. You can choose to be exuberant in life based on his promises.

It's not a matter of conjuring up emotions. It's a matter of saying, Lord, with your help, I'm going to be like Joshua. I'm going to be like Caleb, not like the other 10 who came back from Canaan. Well, we have more about risk tomorrow, the good things that happen when we're willing to step out of the majority and be the minority for God.

And we see that story so graphically illustrated for us in the life of Caleb. Tomorrow we will finish our discussion of risk. Thank you so much for listening.

We'll see you right here tomorrow. For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's current teaching series, Forward, please visit our website, where you'll also find two free ways to help you stay connected, our monthly magazine, Turning Points, and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio. When you do, be sure to ask for your copy of David's powerful new book, Forward, Discovering God's Presence and Purpose in Your Tomorrow. It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard Version, the New International Version, and the New King James Version.

All are available in a variety of handsome cover options. Visit davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio for details. I'm Gary Hoogfleet. Join us tomorrow as we continue the series, Forward. That's here on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah. Thanks for taking time to listen to this audio on demand from Vision Christian Media. To find out more about us, go to vision.org.au.