Spies Like Us

Bobby: Thank you! Thank you! Hello, Las Vegas! YEAAAAAAH!!!

Leader: Hey everybody it’s our good buddy, Bobby Rockit, the lead singer of – (Bobby interrupts)

Bobby: EXSCREAAAAAAM! YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!! How you doin’, baayyyyy-buh?

Leader: I’m doing great man! How’re you?

Bobby: (stays smiling the entire time) I’m freakin’ out! YEAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!

Leader: Freaking out? You sound pretty happy to me!

Bobby: That’s just on the outside! It’s all that soda I drink before going onstage! On the outside I’m all “YEAAAAAAAAAAAH!!” (acts cool), but on the inside I feel like (screams high pitced like a little girl)

Leader: Ow! Bobby, that hurt my ears! You’re going to make us all deaf!

Bobby: What’d you say?

Leader: YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE US ALL DEAF!

Bobby: No! I don’t know anybody named Jeff!

Leader: (to the audience, annoyed) Nevermind. (back to Bobby) Why’re you feeling so scared, Bobby?

Bobby: Well as you know, EXSCREAM is getting ready to go on the big world tour, and I’m afraid of all the stuff that could go wrong!

Bobby: Our first show is gonna be in London, England on top of the London Bridge! There’s a scary song about that!

Leader: Scary song?

Bobby: Yeah! London bridge is falling down, falling down, London bridge is falling down, ON TOP OF

Bobby ROCKIT’S HEAD!!!!!

Leader: Bobby…

Bobby: (interrupts) Then we’re doing a show on the great wall of China!

Leader: That sounds like it’d be fun!

Bobby: Yeah, but what if there’s a hole in that wall?! And what if there’s a giant mouse in that hole?! A great big Chinese mouse that’ll chase us and nibble on us!!! (makes rabid nibbling noises)

Leader: Bobby, that’s just goofy.

Bobby: It won’t be goofy when I get a giant chopstick to the face!

Leader: Sounds to me like you need to change your focus.

Bobby: What’re you talking about?

Leader: You’re so busy focusing on all the things that could go wrong instead of focusing on the awesome power of God! Instead of being afraid all the time, you have to remember that God is all powerful and that He has an awesome plan for you! He is in total control! As long as you’re following HIM, you have nothing to be afraid of!

Bobby: WOW!! Thanks, baaaaayyy-buh! Thanks to you, now I know God’s got some EXTREME power and can take down anything I’m afraid of, because HE’S in control! Now I can sell that giant bottle of mouse repellent on ebay! YEAAAH! I’M Bobby ROCKIT! THANK YOU, GOODNIGHT!!!

(come in dressed up in the spy gear) Have you ever wanted to be a spy? Perhaps you have wanted to spy on your brother or sister. Or maybe you have wanted to spy on your parents to find out what you were going to get for Christmas. Most of us have thought about being a spy at one time or another. We think it would be a lot of fun to be undercover.

In our Bible story today, we find that God told Moses to send men to spy out the land of Canaan. He told him to send a man from each tribe. Twelve men were sent. They were to find out about the land and the people in the land. Moses said to find out if the people were strong or weak. Did they live in cities or in camps? He wanted to know what the fruit of the land was like, and if they hadfor ests or not. He asked them to bring back some of the fruit that was ripe.

The twelve men went into the land and found that it really was a good land. The grapes were so big that it took two men to carry a cluster of them on a pole between them. They also saw that the people there were very big and tall. They were gone for 40 days. When they returned to their own camp, the spies showed Moses the good fruit they had found in the land. Ten of the men began to tell about the giants and how fearful they were. They told of large cities with high walls around them. "We cannot go into this land," they said. "We felt like grasshoppers next to them, and that’s what we looked like to them."

Boys and girls, these spies were falling into the trap of Fear. Many times, this is a trap that the devil wants to use on us, too. He wants us to become afraid in life. He knows that if we are afraid, we will worry about what will happen to us. Like these spies, we begin to focus on our problems. But...

Those ten spies were totally focused on the enemies of the land. They became so focused on those enemies that they started calling them “giants.” Not only that, but they also began to see them as even bigger than what they really were. They said, “We felt just like grasshoppers next to them. That’s what we looked like to them too.” Now, I have a question: How did these spies know that’s what the “giants” thought? They didn’t go conducting interviews with the “giants” and say, “Do we look like grasshoppers to you?” The fact is, these ten spies were focusing so much on the problems in the land that the problems seemed to be a lot bigger than they really were. We do that sometimes, too. We focus on the fact that it’s hard to make friends and we say, “NOBODY likes me at all! EVERYBODY hates me!” Or, we focus on how hard it is to make a good grade in Math and we say, “I’m totally dumb. I can’t get ANY questions right!”

Whatever you focus on grows! So, don’t focus on your problems like these ten spies did. Because you know what else happens? When you focus on the problems and the fear...

The Bible tells us that after the ten spies gave their fear-filled report, the Israelites wanted to give up and go back to Egypt. They said, “We wish we had died in Egypt, or even here in the wilderness! Let’s get out of here and return to Egypt!” Isn’t that terrible? They wanted to go back to being slaves in Egypt simply because they let fear take over.

If we allow fear to take over in our lives, we will most likely feel the same way. We won’t want to obey God. We will want to quit. We will want to give up and stop serving God. That’s not at all what God wants for us, though.

So, what should we do? We should follow the example of the OTHER two spies, Joshua and Caleb. Joshua and Caleb didn’t whine and complain and give into fear. Instead, they told Moses and the Israelites, “The land we explored is a wonderful land! The Lord will bring us safely into that land and give it to us. The Lord is with us! Don’t be afraid of them!”

When you face BIG problems, do just like Joshua and Caleb…

It’s true that our problems may be BIG, but our God is BIGGER! He is more powerful than our enemy, the devil. He is able to help us do anything and everything He has called us to do. We cannot let fear keep us from accomplishing what God has called us to do. Joshua didn’t deny that there were problems, he just didn’t focus on them. He focused on the God that was much bigger!

So, no matter what your problem may be today: sadness, school, family problems, a bad habit, whatever—don’t focus on how BIG your problem is. Focus on how POWERFUL God is. That’s what Joshua did, and that’s what we should do. If we do, then God can use us to do EXTREME things for Him.

1. What was today’s Big Idea? Answer: “I Won’t Focus On My Problems, I Will Focus On God’s Power!”

2. What was Ban Daid afraid of in today’s video? Answer: spiders

3. How many spies did Moses send out to Canaan? Answer: twelve

4. How many of the spies came back with a bad report? Answer: Ten

5. What did the ten spies say they looked like compared to the people in the land? Answer: grasshoppers

6. What were the names of the two spies who came back with a good report? Answer: Joshua and Caleb

7. In our lesson, we learned that “Whatever you focus on ___________.” Answer: grows

8. In our lesson, we also learned “Fear makes me want to _________.” Answer: give up

9. The final lesson we learned was, “Instead of my problems, I will focus on ________ ________.” Answer: God’s Power

10. Where was our Power Verse found? Answer: Psalm 27:1