Giants, Grapes & Grasshoppers

Thank you, Jesus.

Lord, you're so good to us.

We can't put into words how your goodness has been so faithful every day of our lives.

We honor you, Lord.

Thank you for even giving us life and breath today.

That's your goodness as well.

Every good thing we have, we know it all comes from your gracious hand, Lord.

We honor you in this place.

We welcome you in this place.

We ask that the Holy Spirit would continue to minister to the hearts and souls and minds of every single person under the sound of my voice.

Thank you for your word.

Lord, let it transform and change.

We honor you.

We give you first place and preeminence.

You deserve the glory.

In Jesus' holy name we pray.

And everybody said, Amen and amen.

Welcome to church, everybody.

So good to see you all in God's house.

Team weekend, team weekend.

I was conflicted today.

I woke up.

Should I be Team Faith Church?

Or should I be Team New York City?

I thought, you know, I can be Team Faith Church next week and the week after that, and the week after that.

But one time in 53 years, go New York, go New York, go, go New York, go New York, go, right?

So we we we we celebrate in the Knicks today, but it's good to see you all.

But it is a great day for you who walk through the lobby today.

You know that we have all sorts of things set up in the library in the lobby, and that's because we want you to sign up to be part of the greatest team that there is, and that's the church, the team of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

The church of Jesus Christ.

And so I'll talk more about that as we get into the service.

I want to just give honor to a few people, Pastor Tim and Pastor Q, and all of my pastor friends that are here and family from London.

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Glad that you are so that you're here today.

We pray God blesses you in a big way.

If you need a Bible, raise your hands.

The ushers will get them to you.

If you have your Bible taken out, shit take it out.

Shout out to all of our locations that are tuning in, online, television, social media, wherever you're tuning in from, we know God is going to speak to you in a powerful way.

Hold your Bible up nice and high, and let's all make this declaration of our faith together.

Ready, go.

This is my Bible.

It is my primary source of spiritual nourishment.

I will read it every day and become all that God wants me to be.

My mind will be renewed, my life will be transformed, I will become fully surrendered to Christ.

Therefore, I will hide his word in my heart so I can be all God has destined me to be.

Amen.

Numbers chapter number 13.

If you'd remain standing in honor of the word of God, we're going over to Numbers 13, beginning in verse 23.

The scripture says, Then they came to the valley of Eshkol, and there cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes.

They carried it between two of them on a pole.

They also brought some of the pomegranates and figs, and the place was called the Valley of Eshkol because of the cluster which the men of Israel cut down there.

And they returned from spying out the land after forty days.

Now they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh, and they brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.

And then they told him, saying, We went to the land where you sent us.

It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is the fruit.

Nevertheless, the people who dwell in the land are strong.

The cities are fortified and very large.

Moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there.

Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.

When God tells you to do something, please don't hesitate.

Please don't wait.

Please don't wait for the giants to talk you out of it.

Please don't wait for people to bring up all the reasons why you can't.

When God gives you an instruction, faith takes action.

Can you say amen?

But the men who had gone up with him said, We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.

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, men of great stature.

And there we saw the giants, the descendants of Anak, came from the giants, and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.

Today in our series, lions and giants and bears, but God, I want to minister to you from the subject, giants, grapes, and grasshoppers.

Which one will you focus on?

Giants, grapes, or grasshoppers.

Where the focus goes, the power flows.

Let's pray.

Father, in the mighty name of Jesus, we open our hearts for your word right now.

Speak and minister like only you can.

We give you all the praise, and everybody said, You may be seated.

It's been said over and over again, and I think scripture bears it out, that the mind is the battlefield.

More specifically, what we think on, what captures our mind's attention, determines our life's direction.

What captures our mind's attention determines our life's direction.

And Scripture summarizes this truth over and over again, but perhaps best in Proverbs 23, verse number seven, when it says, For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.

Henry Ford famously said it this way: whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.

So today, what I want to do is I want to help you to win the battle for the mind so that you can be what God has destined you to be.

I want to help you to shift your focus off of the giants that you encounter, off of seeing yourself as a grasshopper, and on to the grapes or the good things that God has promised and planned for your life.

Of course, no self-respecting preacher can preach on the mind without going to Philippians chapter 4, verse number 8.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

And you all may know this verse well.

It says, Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, everybody say pure.

Whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things.

Now, my initial reaction when I hear that verse, like, you know, when I first read it, is like easier said than done.

I mean, which you just mean I I can think whatever I want to think.

I can't control what I think on.

I mean, I don't know about you, but there are times when I'm just minding my own business.

Like actually trying to, you know, keep my mind on God and all these things.

All of a sudden, this thought comes out of nowhere, right?

Anybody ever have that happen to them?

Crazy thoughts.

Thoughts that are like, wow, man, I wouldn't have thought in a million years I would be thinking of that right now.

Crazy thoughts, sometimes unpure thoughts, sometimes unholy thoughts.

And I'm thinking to myself, I can't control what I think on.

My mind's got a mind of its own.

Anybody ever feel like that?

But the truth is, you do control what you think on.

You can't stop a thought from coming into your head, but you get to choose what you think on.

That's point number one on your outline.

You get to choose what you think on.

You may not control the thought that comes and where it comes from, but you can control whether you mull it over, whether you think it over, whether you meditate on it, whether you have a conversation in your head over and over again.

You get to choose what you think on.

And if you didn't, and if I didn't, God wouldn't say, think on these things.

God wouldn't tell us to do something that we cannot accomplish.

And you might recall over and over again in Scripture, whenever God is getting ready to take somebody into the place that He has for them, He tells them about the importance of what they think on.

One such case is in the case of Joshua, Joshua chapter 1, verse number 8, this book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate therein, day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written therein.

Joshua 1 · chapter mention

For then you, you, you, you, you, you.

Not God, God, God.

But you, you, you, then you, you, you, you, you shall make your way prosperous.

And then you, you, you, you, you, you, you, not God, shall have good success.

See, God's given you the tools.

God's given me the tools, God's given us the principles.

Behold, I give you the keys to the kingdom, right?

He's given you the principles, he's given you the tools, but you gotta use the tools in order to experience what God has for you.

And what you think on is important.

Matter of fact, Dr.

Carolyn Leaf in our book, Switch on Your Brain, she says this choice is real and free will exist.

You are able to stand outside of yourself, observe your own thinking, consult with God, and change the negative toxic thought, or grow the healthy positive thought.

What you do when you do this, your brain responds with a positive neurochemical rush and structural changes that will improve your intellect, health, and peace, and you will experience soul harmony.

In other words, in my terminology, the reason, forgive me for saying it this way, but I'm saying it for shock value, so you'll remember it.

The reason why you're stupid and sick is because of what you think.

We don't have to stay the way that we are, we don't have to continue doing the things that we are doing.

In other words, we choose to get what we think on and to what we think on and what we meditate on profoundly affects our intellect, our health, and our peace.

It's been studied that 75 to 98 percent of mental, physical, and behavioral illnesses come from one's thought life, and only 2 to 25 percent of all those things come from the environment or genes.

In other words, we are responsible for a lot of what we experience because we have not yet learned how to win the battle of the mind, how to renew our mind with the word of Almighty God.

Philippians, I read you the verse, chapter four, verse number eight, think on these things.

I call it the peace sandwich.

Because Philippians, when it talks about thinking, confirms what Dr.

Carolyn Leaf said when she talked about how your peace affects your mental health, your physical, how your your thinking affects your mental health, your physical health, and your peace.

Because in verse number seven it says, and the peace of God passes all which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Verse number eight, think on these things.

Verse number nine, and the God of peace shall be with you.

In other words, we have a peace sandwich.

The bread is peace and peace.

The meat, how many of you know it's the meat that makes the sandwich?

I mean, don't get me wrong, the bread's gotta be good too, right?

You can ruin a sandwich with the wrong bread, right?

Gotta get you some New York style bread.

Go, New York, go New York.

You gotta get you some New York style bread.

But if all you got is bread, you got no meat, you got no sandwich, right?

And the meat that determines whether you have a peace sandwich in your life is what you think on.

What you think on can disturb your peace or cause your peace to stay settled.

We get to choose what we think on.

I was reading a story about these two farmers.

One was a positive farmer, one was a negative farmer.

The positive farmer, they would, they were both friends.

The positive farmer would thank God for everything.

I mean, it would rain, he'd say, Thank you, God, for the rain, it's watering the crops.

This year we're gonna have bumper crops.

And the negative farmer would say, I mean, I can't believe it's raining this much, it's gonna rot the roots.

And then the sun would come out, and the positive farmer, he would say, You know what, man, this sunshine is great.

God, thank you for the sunshine.

We're getting the our crops are getting the vitamins and the nutrients that they need.

It's gonna be it's gonna be a bumper year.

And the negative farmer would say, I mean, if it stays this sunny out, I mean, all the plants are gonna just dry up and burn, and we're not gonna have any harvest.

And so one day they decided to go uh goose hunting together.

And they they got a little boat, and and the positive farmer he brought his his pet dog, and he was so excited to show his negative farmer friend what the dog can do.

And so they go out in this little boat, and and this goose comes flying over his head, and the positive farmer takes out a shotgun and boom, he knocks it down, and the goose just drops right on the water.

And the dog, he says, Watch this.

The dog jumps out of the boat, he goes walking on the water, right?

He picks up the goose, he comes back walking on the water, puts it in the boat, right in the middle of the boat, and he looks at the negative farmer and he says to me, He said, What do you think about that?

Negative farmer says, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.

That dog can't even swim.

Some of y'all, I mean, you can have all these good things happening around you.

You can have the goodness of God, you can have the blessing of God, you can have all these what happened, but yet you're focused on all the things that are not happening in your life.

And this is similar, similar to our story in Numbers.

Israel was in slavery 400 years.

They're on the border of the promised land, the land that represents everything that God has always wanted for them, everything that they have always dreamed of.

Moses sends out 12 spies to go check it out, report back what the land is like, what the cities are like, what the people are like.

12 spies go out, they all see the same stuff.

Our text says they saw that the land was everything that God said, that it flowed with milk and honey, that it was lush and green, that the crops were beautiful, so beautiful was the fruit that it was oversized.

It was like grapes the size of pumpkins.

The grapes were so big that it took two guys to carry one cluster of grapes on a pole.

They had never seen grapes like this.

It was amazing.

But they also saw giants in the land, the sons of Anak.

And and when they came back, the 12 had a choice meditate, think on, giants or grapes.

Ten said the dog can't swim.

Ten said the giants are too big, ten said they're too strong, ten said we can't.

Two said the grapes are the biggest grapes that I've ever seen.

Let's go right now and take the land.

They all saw the same thing, they were all exposed to the same everything.

Two chose to meditate on the grapes, ten chose to meditate on the giants.

By the way, scripture specifically says in relation to the grapes, and we quoted it, it took two guys to carry one cluster of grapes on a pole.

Now, the scripture doesn't tell us this, but if I was a betting man, if I was a betting man, I'm not a betting man.

Because I'm a believer in Jesus Christ.

I don't do foolery with my money.

Because I'm a steward of Jesus Christ.

I'm I'm not I'm not betting on the Knicks to win.

I'm just hoping, pulling for the Knicks to win.

Because if my bet doesn't go right, it spoils my moment.

Oh, I'm talking to somebody right now.

But anyway, it says that these two guys, and I'm betting the two guys that were carrying the grapes on a pole, I'm just betting it was Joshua and Caleb.

Why?

Because everybody else they're coming around, did you see them giants?

Did you see them giants?

Did you see them giants?

Did you see them giants?

And Joshua and Caleb, they carrying that those grapes on a pole, and they're going, look at the size of these grapes.

Did you ever see grapes like that?

Wait till everybody sees these grapes.

See, you get to choose, are you gonna look at the giants or are you gonna look at the grapes?

And the more you look at the giants, the more you become a grasshopper.

How do we how do we focus on the right things?

We look at grapes all the time.

How do I look at grapes, Pastor?

Get you three, four scriptures.

You know, scripture can give you a promise for anything that you're going through in life.

You know, we we think so many times, you know, we'll just leave it up to God.

We'll just leave it up to God.

Get you a promise, then you, you, you, you, then you, you, you, then you, you, you, you, you shall make your way prosperous, then you, you, you shall have good success.

Why?

If you meditate on the word, don't let it depart from your eyes.

Right?

So, what do you need to do?

You need to keep staring at that thing.

Three, four scriptures that promise you the answer for what you're believing God for.

Put it on your put it on the mirror, uh, your bathroom mirror.

You know, so every morning when you wake up, you're actually looking at those scriptures.

Put it on your screensaver on your computer, put it on your screen saver on your phone.

Take the word of God like you take medicine.

How many of you know when you take medicine, you take it morning, you take it noon, you take it every four to six hours, you take it as much as you need it.

Keep taking the word of God.

Some of you need an effusion of the word of God in your life.

Pump it into your veins.

See, we get to choose what we think on.

If we continue to look at the grapes, the promises of God, we will begin to think right in our life.

Everyone is exposed to giants and grapes in life, but which one you focus on is up to you.

I want you to say this to your neighbor, I want you to look at your neighbor and say, those are some big grapes.

Nah, wait, wait, wait.

Actually, don't say that.

I just thought about that.

I mean, just scratch.

Jesus.

Number two, number two.

What you think on determines your destiny.

Only two of that entire generation make it into the promised land.

Joshua and Caleb.

Only two experience, listen, listen, listen.

Only two experience the will of God for their life, even though it was the will of God for every single one of them to go into the promised land.

Pause, stop.

Only two.

Even though it was the will of God from them all to go into the promised land.

Listen to me carefully.

Not everything that you experience in your life is the will of God.

God will go through great lengths to provide you access to everything heaven has to offer.

God went to great lengths to deliver them from Egypt and get them into the promised land.

He raised up a deliverer named Moses.

He raised him as the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

He put them in the palace to give them inside information so that he would know how to be Israel's deliverer.

He sent them before Pharaoh with a message: let my people go, rain down ten plagues to convince Pharaoh to let his people go.

Part of the Red Sea, cause them to walk through on dry ground, drown Pharaoh's armor, fed them with manna, gave them quail, brought raw water from a rock.

Even though God went through great lengths to deliver them from Egypt and give them the opportunity to enter in the promised land, even though it was the will of God for them to enter the promised land, only two of that entire generation went into the promised land.

The rest all died in the wilderness, never having experienced the will of God, because they chose to think on wrong things and consequently developed a wrong mindset.

Everyone chose to think on giants and developed a grasshopper mentality.

There we saw the giants.

We were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in theirs.

How do they know that?

Did they go talk to the giants that they were afraid of?

Like they're afraid of the giants, like we can't beat them, but I'm just gonna go consult with one of them.

Mr.

Giant, how do I look to you?

They begin to meditate on the wrong things, and so they came away with the wrong conclusion.

When you think on wrong things, you develop the wrong mindset.

When you develop the wrong mindset, you miss out on your rightful destiny.

When you don't think right, you will not experience the destiny God has designed for you and went through so much to give you.

He left heaven and became a man.

He walked in our shoes, he took our humanity, he subjected himself to our shortcomings.

He died on a cruel cross in our place, descended into hell.

Thank God on the third day he rose again.

He went to hell and back so that you can have everything that he died for.

But whether you experience that or not, has rarely, and I say this with a parenthetical pause, anything to do with God.

Everything to do with God.

Because he did all the work.

I've learned this about God.

God's mind is already made up.

God doesn't make up his mind on the spot.

It's not like God goes, oh, okay, this is what's going on.

Let me wait.

Let me observe the circumstance to determine what the outcome is going to be.

God sees the beginning from the end.

God has visited, God has been there, God's mind is made up.

I don't have to convince God, I don't have to change God's mind.

I don't have to do what I have to do is I have to get myself in alignment with everything that God has already for me.

Romans chapter 12, verse number two.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove.

And if you look up that word in the original language, it means experience.

What is that good, perfect, and acceptable will of God?

In other words, the way that you walk in, the way that you receive everything that God has for you is if you feed your mind and if you get your mind in alignment with the word of God.

The reason why so many people struggle to live holy is because their spirit is saved, but their mind is not.

So their flesh wins because their mind and their flesh are hooked up with one another.

And every time their flesh says do this, their mind says okay.

But what you really got to do is you got to get your spirit and your mind synced up with one another.

So when your flesh says do this, you say, uh no way, I'm not going that way.

See, we need to team up against the flesh, not give in to the flesh.

See, why did everyone except two from that generation in the story die in the wilderness?

Because they were thinking one way and everybody else was thinking another way.

The ones that died, they were stuck in Egypt.

See, here's what you need to understand.

When things got hard, when they encountered giants, they got dragged back into their old Egypt mindset.

Stuck mindset, slavery mindset, poverty mindset, never be free mindset.

And everything started to drift back.

See, what happens is every time there's a new season for your life, the enemy will try to pull you back into old mindsets.

Because you can't enter a new meeting new season with an old mindset.

The only way you can go to where God has for you is your mind has to evolve in the process.

You have to begin to think more like God.

Numbers chapter 11, verse number 4.

Numbers 11 · chapter mention

The children of Israel also wept again and said, Who will give us meat to eat?

We remember the fish that we ate freely in Egypt.

Was that fish free?

I don't know if that fish was free.

I think in order to get that fish, you gotta get whipped.

You gotta get beaten.

They said, I remember we freely ate it.

The cucumbers, the melon, the leeks.

Have you ever tasted a leek?

Anybody ever tasted a leek?

I tasted a leek.

A leek's got no flavor.

The only way you can get flavor on a leek is you gotta put some salt on it, you gotta put some spices on it, and leeks are bland, but they dreaming about leeks when there's giant grapes staring them in the face.