RISK - Get Out of Your Safe Zone

Welcome to Turning Point, Weekend Edition. Leaving your comfort zone and stepping out in faith is a risk that every believer must take.

But how? Today, Dr David Jeremiah offers answers from the Old Testament story of Caleb. Here's David to share his message, Risk.

Get out of your safe zone. Well, this weekend we return to our discussion of moving forward, discovering God's presence and purpose in our tomorrow. We've already examined what it means to have a dream and a vision and to consult your Creator through prayer. Today, we're going to talk about taking risks, which is just another way to describe faith, living outside your safe zone.

It's next on the Weekend Edition of Turning Point, right here on this Good Station. 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. 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, forded 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. It 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 10, 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, Sephir, Nabi, and Qul? I haven't heard of them before.

Have you? No, because these are the names of the 10 spies who risk 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 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'd 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. 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, what 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 that 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 have 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. Their 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. Caleb 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. So risk takers stay exuberant about their lives. Number two, they stay excited about their futures. Watch Caleb.

Watch what he does. Caleb told Joshua, now therefore, he said, give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke in that day for you heard in that day how the Anakim were there and that the cities were great and fortified. It may be that the Lord will be with me and I will be able to drive them out as the Lord said. Now, I don't know if you get what's going on here, but Caleb has just walked up to his leader and asked for the toughest assignment in the settling of the land. When I read that, I felt like shouting, yes. At age 85, Caleb was ready to claim the hill country to tame the land, provide a lasting inheritance for his children.

There's something here I don't want you to miss. Early in this message, I told you about Hebron and that it was 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 had terrified the 10 unfaithful spies. They were made to feel like grasshoppers compared to the enemy. This portion of territory was still not taken by Israel. It was unpossessed, unclaimed, and the giants had scared everybody away. Everybody, except Caleb, who said in effect, I want that country as my inheritance, and I'm ready to take care of those daunting super villains.

Let me at them. No matter your age or your circumstance, no matter what hill you need to climb, that kind of enthusiasm is what carries you forward. Someone has said, if you can get excited about the future, the past won't matter much. Even when the world is coming apart at the seams, when global panics and pandemics are the order of the day, when our economy is uncertain and our faith is under assault, even then, especially then, you need to look ahead to the next step that God has for you. Caleb didn't use his gray hair to beg off the heavy lifting. He asked for a worthy challenge because he had the wisdom to know that with a powerful quest comes a powerful reward.

In other words, knock down a giant and you become a giant yourself. He still had a vision for the future, and because of that, he accomplished the greatest victory of his life when he was 85 years old. Risk takers stay exuberant about their lives.

They stay excited about their futures and they stay enthusiastic about their assignment. As you can see, Caleb was enthusiastic about his assignment. Joshua and the Israelites had not yet succeeded in driving the evil occupants out of the large sections of the promised land. The business was unfinished, but Joshua 15 verse 14 says, Caleb drove out the three sons of Anak, Sheshi, Ahaman, and Telmai, the children of Anak. Caleb did exactly what he was told, and he did it immediately.

He is one of those success stories whose secret isn't so secret. He just did it in the strength of the Lord. That's enthusiasm. You know the word enthusiasm, made up of the Greek words for in and God, enthaism. It was coined to describe the zeal of the early Christians. When we have the God of all energy within us, there's a surge of power that's like an atomic reaction in our hearts.

The apostle Paul said it this way, I strenuously contend with all the energy of Christ so powerfully works in me. Risk takers stay exuberant about their lives. They stay excited about their futures. They stay enthusiastic about their assignment, and they stay energized about their God. That brings us back to the consummation of our story. Only the energy of God within us can keep us barreling forward into the remainder of God's will for our lives.

As I said, the story of Caleb's life is told in just 30 verses in the Bible, but six times in those 30 verses, we are given the secret to his risk-filled, risk-taking life. I want to put these before you. I want you to see these. It is really stark. It is really overwhelmingly clear and very powerful. Just 30 verses, and in those verses, six times we're told Caleb's secret.

Let me tell you something. When you find Caleb's secret, you will find the secret for your life. Here are these verses. But my servant Caleb has a different spirit in him, and he has followed me fully. They have not wholly followed me except Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, and Joshua, the son of Nun, for they have wholly followed the Lord. Deuteronomy 1, Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, he shall see it, and to him and his children, I am giving the land on which he walked because he wholly followed the Lord. Joshua 14, I wholly 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. And Joshua 14, 14, Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite to this day, because he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel.

Now, if you didn't pick up for my voice, the key phrases in these verses, you're not listening. Caleb wholly followed. He wholly followed. He wholly followed his Lord. By the time he was 85, most of his generation had given up hope and died, but Caleb still had a bright fire burning in his heart. He still wanted to risk his life on the greatest possible task that God could give him. As I reflect on what it means to incorporate risk into our walk with God, I want to tell you a story about the church I serve, the Shadow Mountain Community Church.

We're here in El Cajon, California. By 1990, I had been the pastor there for about 10 years. After almost eight years of struggling, we were finally ready to move into our new worship center. And we knew we'd experienced traumatic growth, and we were trying to prepare for it. One of the things on our minds was finances. We were concerned that our giving to worldwide missions would suffer if we didn't do something special. We wanted to increase that number, but we didn't know how to go about it. So we had a business meeting to talk about it.

I'll never forget it. During the meeting, someone suggested that we allocate 5% of our general budget to missions. And someone else stood up and said, we give 10% of our income to God, and we ask people to tithe. Why should not the church tithe their income to missions? That seemed like a big risk. Our new building payments, our growing ministry, we're struggling to meet our financial obligations.

How would we ever survive if we took 10% of our already not enough money and gave it away? And that's when I heard myself get up and say, what do you think God would do for us if we gave 20% of our budget to missions going forward? That was a long time ago. I tell you, I still remember how quiet it got that moment in that meeting.

And it seemed like it stayed quiet for a long time. And then a man by the name of Ralph Radford, one of the Caleb's of our church, he stood up and he encouraged us to take that challenge. He predicted that God would bless us if we did. And someone also reminded us that missions is the closest thing to the heart of God in the Bible. God had sent his own son into this world as the first missionary. We made the decision, that kind of risk decision, that decision not to keep from failing, but to actually go forward and win.

I've been talking about that decision in this message. And we carried that out that day. And we have been doing it now for over 30 years. Today, Shadow Mountain currently supports 198 missionary families with ministries in 41 countries in over 50 different languages. We helped to underwrite three pregnancy care centers, the downtown rescue mission, the servicemen's center, and our Spanish, Arabic, and Iranian congregations. Our missionary budget this year will exceed for the first time $4 million. And over the years, since we took that risk back in the early 90s, we have given over $50 million to evangelize the world. None of that is said to boast. I didn't tell you that so you could think how great this church is or how great its pastor is.

No, it's thanksgiving. It's gratitude, but it's also a lesson for us. We made a decision to take a risk and not just to try. And God honored that decision in a magnificent way. What risk is God asking you to take as you go forward?

I want to tell you flat out, you can't go forward without risk. What God has done for us, he will do for you. His will for you is not earthly comfort, but divine courage. Courage in the face of opposition, courage in the face of cultural change, courage when confronted with the unknown, courage in the midst of a pandemic. God will never choose safety for us if it will cause significance.

God created us to count and not to be counted. This is your time to move forward. This is my time to move forward, out of the safe zone, into the faith zone, and going forward. We hope you enjoyed today's Turning Point Weekend edition with Dr. David Jeremiah. To hear this and other Turning Point programs, or to get more information about this ministry, simply download the free Turning Point mobile app for your smart device, or visit our website at davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org slash radio. You can also view Turning Point television on free to air channel 72, Sunday mornings at eight, and on ACC TV Sundays at 6 30 a.m. and Friday afternoons at one. We invite you to join us again next weekend as Dr. David Jeremiah shares another powerful message from God's Word here on Turning Point Weekend Edition.