Boldness

This recording is from Willow Creek Church in Winter Springs, Florida, where Dr. Pete Owonson is our senior pastor. Today's sermon is part 9 in the Offensive Christianity series. This message is titled Boldness, and it's taken from Joshua chapter 14, verse 12. Now here's Pete with today's message. We continue today our series and our study, the Summer Offensive Christianity. That's the kind of thing that keeps us on the offense, boldness, it's a trade, it's a Christian trade. So, we're going to talk about that today, and we're going to talk about Caleb, a guy that really manifests this quality of bravery, of courage. How many of you have heard of Caleb before in the Old Testament? How many of you heard of him? Okay, good. A lot of you have, and so we're going to talk about him, but we're going to talk about him at the point when he is 85 years of age. Apparently, he was one of those guys that was brave all of his life, but now we're going to look at him as an 85-year-old and how he shows us how to be brave, how to be bold. By the way, I've got to tell you about his name. You know what Caleb means if you look in the original Hebrew? It's a very simple word. Caleb means dog. That's what it means. That's what the literal Hebrew is, and there is no other translation there. It's not like dog and highly favored of God, you know? No, it's like dog, dog, that's it, and so can you imagine Caleb's parents sitting around talking about that? Hey, honey, what are we going to name? You know, flipping through the new Hebrew book of names that comes out, baby, hey, you know, what if it's a girl, Sarah Elizabeth Rachel, that's cool. What if it's a boy? How about dog? Honey, it isn't going to happen. It's going to be a girl. I feel it's going to be a girl, you know, but if it's a boy, you can call it Caleb. It happened. Dog. How does he get that name? I'm not sure. We can't get into the minds back then and figure it out, but it could have been this. If you were a king back there in that time, under the power of another king, you might call yourself the dog of the Pharaoh of Egypt, in other words, it might be a word that kind of conveys humility, subservience, gentleness. But I think it probably comes from just the plain, downright, canine qualities. I think Caleb, I think Caleb was named Dog. Because his parents probably his dad wanted him to be a guy that was tenacious, that sunk his teeth in the life. Maybe he moved around in his mother's womb so much that his mother said, you got to give this guy a wild name because he's a wild guy, so they called him Dog because it wanted their son to be strong and bold and put his teeth in the life and really enjoy it. You want to live that way too. You don't want to just get through life. You don't want to just slide through life. You want to live life with a certain boldness to it. You want to sink your, don't you? In Jesus, you can now. Some of you were singing that song thinking, I wish I could get rid of the status quo in my life. I wish I was strong enough to move on. You can. You can. Because God did not save us to keep us timid, saved us to set us free and to live our life. How would you call yourself bold or fearful? You don't have to go on record now. Some of you are bold, some of you are fearful. Like the little girl, Mark Shaw told me about who was late to church. She was running to church. She didn't want to miss Sunday school so she was running and praying, oh Lord don't let me be late. Oh Lord don't let me be late and then she tripped and felt that dress was all dirty and torn. She got back up, started running and she said, oh Lord don't let me be late, don't let me be late. Don't shove me next time. And some of you have been living your life lately and you can kind of feel like the father is kind of shoving you. You're not normally bold but he's saying to you, son, daughter, come on, I want you to do that ministry. Remember, it's not a coincidence that I brought this up 29 times. Come on, go, do that. Well we're going to talk about boldness because it's so important. Nothing ever got done that was good without some boldness. Now let me tell you a little bit about Caleb before I read this text. This is a long introduction I know but I got to tell you three real quick things. I got to tell you about Caleb that he and Joshua were buddies and so it's not, it doesn't surprise us that Joshua includes his buddy in his book and he tells us a story because they go back a long way. They probably knew each other all of their lives. Certainly, they've known each other for at least 45 years. So they're buddies. They go way back. Secondly, you need to know that Caleb and Joshua were two really bold 40-year-olds back then. You were considered young when you were 40. It's not that way today but they were at 40, sent in with the other 10 spies to check out the Promised Land on a reconnaissance mission. God said, go see if we can take out Canaan, Moses sent them out but God wanted them to go out and check it out. They come back and it was Joshua and Caleb who said, we can do this. Yeah, we do this. We got to do this. God gave it to us. You know, we might lose a few people but there's good food there and it's just for us. God gave it. We got to go. Guys came back and they were just shaking in their sandals and they said, no, we can't do this. And it was the 10 who set the agenda for the rest of the country. Do you remember the story? The statistics were against Joshua and Caleb, 10 said we shouldn't go in, two said we should was both Joshua and Caleb and you need to, you know, when it comes to people and you find this, don't you? Some people who are brave and bold and make you braver and bolder. They just instill that in you. Maybe instead of movie and then there's some people who are fearful and when you're around them, they instill fear in you. I tell you every summer one of the local schools has on their marquee have a safe summer and I want to rip that down because all these little boys are told that the highest value in life is to be safe. I want to say, go ride your skateboard someplace where you might get hurt. You know, now they've got those but dads, they've got moms, they've got those big board skate boards now. Have you seen them? They're getting longer again. So you too can get back into skateboarding. Yeah. I'd like to see you do what was I talking about? I don't know, but Caleb inspired boldness, not fearfulness, you also need to know about Caleb that when the nation said we're not going in, he lived for the rest of his 45 years up to the present time, up to this text. For 45 years, he lived wandering around in circles out in the deserts. I'd have killed somebody, I'd have killed somebody 45 years, running around in circles, take it up your tents, moving here, moving there, knowing all the time that it was because those suckers were 10 guys. The only solace in the whole thing is, because God told him, the only solace is, I'm going to get in the promised land and you're not. You're going to die before me and I get to see the land. That was Caleb's, I think, maybe one of his, but what, he got productive. He focused. When things didn't work out for him the way he wanted it. He focused, built his family and he was ready, but he never forgot, he never forgot. The vision of the land, the vision of the land and for 45 years, he thought and trained and prepared himself, one day we're going in there and I'm going to be ready and my kids are going to be ready and my grandkids are going to be ready, so he used his time productively. All right, here it is, now with that introduction that we get to the text for today and all of the major battles for Israel, for Canaan have been one already. They've split the land, they've got most of the land, now they're doing mopping up operations, and Caleb comes to Joshua, Joshua 14, 6 or 15, this is God's Word. Then the sons of Judah drew near to Joshua in Gilgal and Caleb, the son of Jeffania, the Kessonite, said to him, you know the Word which the Lord God spoke to Moses, the man of God concerning you and me and Kedish Barnea, I was 40 years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord sent me from Kedish Barnea to spy out the land and I brought Word back to him as it was in my heart and the Word in his heart was what, let's go do this. Let's go take the land. I sincerely believe we can do this. Nevertheless, my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt with fear, I wouldn't have said it that nice, but I followed the Lord my God fully, Caleb says. So Moses swore on that day saying, surely the land on which your foot is trod and shall be in inheritance to you and your children forever, because you followed the Lord my God fully and now behold the Lord has let me live just as he spoke these 45 years from the time that the Lord spoke this Word to Moses when Israel walked in the wilderness and now behold, 85 years old today. I'm still as strong today as I was and the day Moses sent me as my strength was in so my strength is now for war for going about coming in now. Here's the verse to memorize now then. Give me this hill country about which the Lord spoke on that day for you heard on that day that Anna Kim were there with great fortified cities, perhaps the Lord will be with me and I shall drive them out as the Lord has spoken. So Joshua blessed him and gave Hebron to Caleb, the son of Jeffania for an inheritance. Therefore, Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb, the son of Jeffania, the Kessonite until this day because he followed the Lord God of Israel fully. The name of Hebron was formerly Kiryaf, Arba, for Arba was the greatest man among the Anakin that then the land had rest from war. Well that's Caleb, Caleb, does he make you want to be brave? Maybe not make you want to sing the song publicly, but does he make you want to be brave? He does me what a warrior he was, a man who was willing to make sacrifices and to follow God wherever Bruce Glass that told me the story about the time that Abraham was taking his son Isaac up to sacrifice him to God. You heard this story, if I ever told you this, well some LDS, Latter-day Saint, Mormon scholars were trying to figure out the age of Isaac when Abraham took him up and they figured out he had to be between eight, he had to be at least eight and he couldn't have been more than twelve. He had to be at least eight because he could help carry the wood for Abraham and he could have been more than twelve because if he was a teenager at thirteen it wouldn't have been a sacrifice. Some of you thought I was going to say something serious and Caleb was a guy who was willing to make sacrifices, to be a warrior, to go after it, to follow the vision that God gave him. He was a manly man, he was a high octane kind of guy and he trained himself and his sons for battle. He was a good follower, good leaders usually are by the way. You can't be a good leader until you're first a good follower. He was, he followed Moses, he followed Joshua until he got to lead his whole family in this battle. Apparently he also kept himself in shape physically, that's important for the long haul, isn't it? US News and World Report had a deal this past week about the importance of keeping ourselves in shape. It really does help us fight disease and live longer. So you know, now how much of this was genetics, 85 years of age, he's as strong as he was at 40, have you ever met, you meet some people and you see, you know, so how old are you at 25? Now I'm 45 and they just, they just, they got the genetics. I know some guys that are 70 that can crush my hand, take me, I'm not going to get in battles with them, genetics, but he kept, apparently he kept himself in shape. He was positive and full of faith. He was ready, but boldness stands out the most, I think Joshua wasn't surprised. When Caleb came to Joshua and he said, hey, I want that hill country up there, you know, and Joshua probably said, I figured you'd want that land. You want a hillside house with a deck and for your barbecue, you want a view, you want all that stuff, go for it. But what Caleb was really saying was this, Joshua, I want the hill country where the big guys are, because the Anakin, you can read this at number 13, these were not, these were genetically huge people, they, they were not probably the size of NBA players, but they were big. And Caleb says, I want, I want the challenge to go up the hills against big guys who are firmly entrenched and heavily armed. This was the ancient equivalent of hamburger hill, Vietnam, you see the movie about that, about those guys going up the hill to get it firmly, fighting up hill is the worst, it's the most difficult you can do, Caleb says, that's what I want. We're getting a picture of this guy, he was bold, I love to hang out with people with canine teeth, because I naturally tend to be fearful and that we just got back from General Assembly. Chris Adaway and I went to General Assembly, that's our national yearly denominational meeting. About 3,000 people, pastors and elders, there's so much spirituality in that place, you just can't even believe it. And by the way, the other Presbyterian denomination meets at this time of the year two, and I always have to tell you, because their press releases get in the papers and ours don't, because they're the main line and we're not, and that's not us. So whatever in the paper of the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America, that's not us, and they say some things that are not biblical, that's not us. And I say that again, but I'm with all these, I'm with all these Presbyterian types who love Jesus, and I love to hang out with the church planners the most. I love to be with those guys, because they're like Caleb, they're like Caleb, they're the ones that come up and they say, hey, I've gone to seminary, I've been ordained, I've been a pastor for a while, can I, can I go to that city where we don't have a PCH church, and can I start one, can I take my family, can I take my kids out of school, can I leave all my financial roots, can I raise my own money, and can I go start a church, and I think you're nuts. You know, 1500 pastors a month leave the ministry, pastors are crazy, they get crazy, I'm not sure if you make us crazy, we make you crazy, but we get crazy, the craziest are church planners, they're like Caleb. Who it turns out tends to be a role model of living life with the gusto that we all, you need a vacation, take one, you need a break, get one, you need, you need to get away to think, you need to rethink your ministry here at the church, how you're doing, what you're doing in your job, you need a chance, I need a chance, some of you got to recover, it's been so difficult, with what you've been going through this last year, you need a break to, you know, Einstein's definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over in the same way and expecting different results. You need to get away, you need to think, you need a vacation, but the only way to live is to engage in something that is significant and uphill battle against the odds, if you're not living that way, it's not going to be fun, you're not going to feel as much the power of God in your life, we won't be as aggressive as we could be, so there it is, that's, boy, that's Caleb, but now let me, let me, let me make two applications to two groups of people, we got two groups of people here, we've got thinkers and we've got Christians here, believers, we've got the committed and the uncommitted, let me talk to the thinkers first of all, you were the guys who aren't committed to Christ yet and you've come and we always have thinkers here at Willough Creek and we're glad you're here. You come here, you kind of look at over the fence at Christians and you're saying, what is this really all about? They sing songs, they talk about the Bible, they look pretty good when they drive their cars in in the morning, it's pretty nice, people, they're all right, what is this really all about? Thinkers are people who are not afraid of asking tough questions about big issues, about, you've run across those thinkers, thinkers or guys when you get on an airplane, they're the ones with a big book that they, not a novel, it's the ones with the John Adams history of world civilization on their lap. I saw a guy sitting across the aisle, I'd read that book and I was quite proud of the fact that I had. So I said, I read that book because yeah, this is my second time, it's a great book, second time, barely made it through the first time, I said, have you read, we started doing dueling books, you know, the ego came out, I said, well have you read this, he was a nice guy, oh yeah, that was great, I'm going to read that again, I said good, you know on page 44 Merit says, I'm going, no, this guy, he won, he won, I'm dead, he was a thinker, I love guys like that, I was beginning and we just didn't have enough time to start talking about Jesus, that's what I wanted to get to, but we couldn't at any rate, he's a thinker and their thinker's here, you guys are asking big questions like, did the world really just happen to just come about, could this Christianity thing be real, what about the Bible? Is it faithful, what about Jesus, why won't Jesus go away, that's my big question, you've read history, why won't Jesus go away, he's still here, there's still churches, thinkers ask questions like, you know, maybe, maybe, Jesus was not a bad guy, maybe he was a good, as you read in John 17, if you want to read the gospel, I encourage you thinkers to get one of the gospels, here's the mountain I want you to climb, I want you to come, I challenge you, we could do doling books sometime, but I really challenge you to climb the mountain of answering the question of Jesus, identity, who is he really, because so many of us live with open-ended lives on big issues, we don't ask the big questions about the big issues and we just live on as though they don't matter, they do, close the loop, climb the mountain against the skeptics who are hurling swords at you and are saying, oh, you're an idiot for even checking out about Jesus, because Jesus, wow, we've done with him a long time ago, that's the question the first century Christians asked, even if there's an interesting passage in John 7, where it says, not even his brothers were believing in him, but then later they did, and then, and then they martyred themselves, they put their lives on the line, why is that? I'm trying to answer that. Jesus said, the world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its deeds are evil. They hated Jesus because they, Jesus said, as he pointed out people's behavior, that the behavior was wrong, maybe Jesus was right, couldn't hurt to check that out. The Jews in Jesus' day were curious about him, find out, is he good? Is he bad? Never having had a formal education. I guess the question I asked was, how could he be so wise? So, we want to be a part of this with you. If you're a thinker, the mountain decline, the boldness I ask you to pursue, is to really ask the question, who is Jesus, and actually come to some conclusions about it. We love to be a part of that process with you, as you think about Jesus. Now, for those of you who are Christians, that's most of us, because you wouldn't be here on July or June, on Sunday morning, on a beautiful day, I heard it was supposed to rain all day today, maybe not. You wouldn't be here if you weren't committed. Here's the mountain I want you to think about climbing with me. It's the mountain of being reminded why we're here. Why are we here? We're here to not only to do what Caleb did, not only to extend our own personal territory. You know, would I have gone for the hill country

for the view I would have for the enemies? I don't know. But we are here not only to extend our own personal space for our families, but we are here to extend the kingdom of God and to tell other people about Jesus Christ and to invite them into the kingdom. That immediately,

doesn't that immediately strike fear in your heart? Oh, no. Pete's going to talk about evangelism, the e-word, how I've got to tell other people about Christ. Well, yeah, listen to this passage, first Corinthians 9, Paul said, for though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all that I might win the more. I love that. Paul says, you know what Jesus did for me? He freed me up from all those Pharisees and all that legalism and all that rules and all those regulations I'm free. Paul said at another point, he said, I don't even care what you guys think of me. Now, I haven't said that to you, have I? Because I do care about that. But Paul said to the Corinthians and said, I don't care what you guys think about me. He said, I'm free. So I think I'll become a slave. I'm free, so I think I'll become a slave, but catch this. And you're not going to like this. He didn't say, I'll become a slave to the Christians to make sure everybody's doing all right. He said, I'm going to become a slave to those who don't know Christ. I've read that again. And I said, I've been a pastor for this long. How did it? I didn't miss that. Surely I understood that before. Paul said, we're not perfect in the church. We're still in mess. But I'm going to be a slave for bringing people to Christ, to Jews, to Gentiles, to red and yellow, black and white, because they're all precious in his sight. Because that would become a slave. I'm going to do all things whatever I could do. I'm even going to give up some of my Jewishness. If it means I can bring somebody to Christ, I'm going to give up my style of worship. If it means I can bring somebody to Christ, I'm going to become a slave. This is big. The mountain to climb is, what about us not forgetting? Not forgetting that we are a mission as a church. Sometimes I forget. I've sometimes forget. Because I was a church planner. This was a mission church. And one day, at one point when I was first ordained, they called me an evangelist. I liked that. It was the last time I was ever called an evangelist. I mean, like Billy Graham, when I go to Presbyteria, yes, well, our evangelists, please step forward and talk about their works. And so I got to step forward. I'm an evangelist. Like Billy Graham, trouble is people never came to Christ like they did for Billy Graham for me. But nevertheless, I was an evangelist telling people about Jesus. And sometimes I forget that. I do. Do you ever forget that? You know, I do forget. But Lang was telling me the story just yesterday. It was, I loved it. He told me this story of this older gentleman who walked into a room where there was a few older ladies and one of the ladies looked at him and said, I bet I can guess accurately your age. He says, I don't think so. She says, no, I can't. In fact, I'll give you 20 bucks if I don't guess your age right. And he said, how can I lose? That's great. She goes, take off your shirt. Took off her shirt. And she took off her shoes. She took off her shoes. She said, now, dance around and hop up and down until I tell you to stop. He did and then he stopped. And she said, you're 84. He said, how did you know that? She said, you told me yesterday. There there are manipulators out there. Watch it. I love that. It's easy to forget. Isn't it? Why we're here? It's easy to forget the mountain. It's easy to forget that we are a mission. And then I thought, why do I forget sometimes that I'm here to bring other people to faith in Christ? Why do I forget that? Why do I lose heart? And I've, you know, I was thinking about, I don't know about you, but it's easy. It's easy for us to forget when you're driving down a street where maybe somebody has a house that's bigger than yours. It's hard to have compassion, feel compassion. Well, I'm sorry. You have a golf course law. It's sad. You're suffering, you know. Maybe I can give you some money. It's hard when you're driving down and the SUV that you want, just practically drives you over because they didn't even see you. And it's hard to have compassion when you're looking around at a very abundant city. One of the guys that spoke at General Assembly was Donnie Saint Germain. If anybody could create guilt, this guy could. He didn't. But he said, hey, for 37,000 bucks, I'll give you a ministry in Haiti. He's planted all kinds of churches. It's 37,000 bucks is what we'll give you. I'll give you a pastor. I'll give you, I'll give you a church, people and building and a bakery. So your people can make money for $37,000. You know, everybody's out there saying, where's my checkbook? We're wanting to help. We know that compassion, everybody knows about Haiti. It's an awful place with all kinds of political unrest and poverty and all that kind of stuff. I had compassion for those people and I thought, I got to have compassion for these around me. And then I thought, then I thought about that family that I know

where it's being blown apart right now. The divorce is happening. It's going to happen. The man can't do anything to stop it. He messed up some stuff but he's not getting a second chance. I thought about the woman who is fighting cancer who doesn't know Jesus, who doesn't know good people like you that can help bring meals. I'm thinking about that young kid that I know who's never got parents around and he's raising himself. The guy who hates his job hates it but has no overriding principle for how to maybe make a transition or to deal with the trials in his life. So I began to think, you know, if I would just look and think about what's going on with some of these people, my compassion might come back and it did. It's said of Abraham Lincoln that all through his 20s, he thought thoughts of suicide so often that he wouldn't even carry a pocket knife in his pocket because he thought he'd actually do it. There are people right around you who think of suicide every day. It's so for us, as we kind of climb a mountain, for us maybe the challenge is to remember that we're a missionary, that we get the opportunity as messed up as our lives are and as difficult as our lives are, as much trials and as much difficulty as we have to think about those who don't even have Jesus. You have him. You've got to, why don't you invite somebody to church, bring him to your small group, have a small group Matthew's party, bring him. Remember that we're here as missionaries in a mission field. Now, do you think this is guilt? There's no guilt because you're free. You can do it every one. Adam and Eve lost it for us. Jesus got it back for us and you get the free gift of salvation. You're free. You can do it every one. You don't have to become a slave to anybody. You don't have to share Christ with anybody. You don't have to. You're free. Saying, Pete, this doesn't sound free. No, it really is. If you never shared Christ with anybody for the rest of your life, God wouldn't love you less than he loves you now. If you never reached out to your neighbor, he would still love you as your daughter as his son. You're free. Really, the question is, what are we going to do with our freedom? And I like Caleb and I want to hang out with guys like that. Don't you? Let's do it. Go for it. Climb the mountain. You take it to heart. Let's pray. Lord, we come to you today and we just thank you for purposeful people like Caleb and for our Lord Jesus Christ who set us free from sin and hell and death who gave us a reason to live, a reason to even look beyond the things that plague us and bother us about our own lives. Lord, work in our lives and meet our needs. But Lord, would you make us bold wherever we are? I Caleb and we'll give you honor and praise and glory. Thank you for letting us be your daughters and sons. We pray in Jesus. Willow Creek Church is associated with the Presbyterian Church in America. Our website is www.willowcreekchurch.org and our phone number is 407-699-82-11.