| Rev. Adam Hamilton | Church of the Resurrection

2:57 that over the next few weeks. We're going to start today by looking at a story from the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, one of the great stories in the scripture where we find the Israelites camped out a mile from the promised land and terrified to go in. And we're going to see how that story speaks to our lives today. But first, we're going to talk a little bit about where fear comes from, and then we're going to turn from there to talk about, well, talk about what we learned from a survey that we conducted with you. 3,300 of you took a survey over the last few weeks about fear, and I'm going to share with you the results of that. This survey on fear is what really shaped this entire sermon series. So I'm not basing this on something I read in a book published in New York City. I'm basing this on your actually lived experiences as you shared them with me in our fear survey. So today's sermon is called Paralyzed by Fear, A Mile from the Promised land, and you'll understand why by the time we're finished today. So I want to start by recognizing that we aren't actually supposed to live entirely fearless lives. Like fear is an important mechanism built into us. Every mammal has a structure in the brain called the amygdala. The amygdala, it has a whole lot of functions, some of which we don't even understand, but we do know it ties into our fight or flight or freeze response when there's perceived danger. So it's designed to save us. It's designed to protect us. There are times you should be afraid. There are times you need to run. There are times you need to fight. And there are times you need to freeze. That's just life.

4:18 But not nearly as many times as you do. Let me just show you the amygdala. This is from the Cleveland Clinic, the brain anatomy. And you can find right here this almond-shaped structure. It's called the amygdala. Amygdala, I think, means almond, if I'm not mistaken. And there's two of these, one on either side or either hemisphere. And what happens is the senses are feeding data to the amygdala, to the entire brain, but to the amygdala in particular. It is sensing from what you see, what you smell, what you taste, what you hear, what you feel. And there are sometimes thought to be three or four other senses as well. A sense of spatialness, a spatial awareness, balance, and intuition. The sixth sense is sometimes called. But all of these senses are sending data to the amygdala. The amygdala is trying to decide in a moment, is there any danger for you. And its job is to be paranoid. So the amygdala is constantly serving your environment to see, should you be afraid? Is there anything you should be afraid of? And thank God for your amygdala and it doing this. Because, you know, if somebody throws something at you and you don't even know, and they're maybe not even trying to hit you, but it's coming your way, you duck immediately. And why do you do that? Because your amygdala says, duck, long before your brain actually, you know, has processed what's going on and it saves you. Or if you hear a loud bang, You know, you jump or, you know, I mean, you understand there are so many things that you do almost instantaneously.

5:37 And that's made possible because God designed you with this wonderful apparatus, the amygdala. You know, liken the amygdala to, in your home, a smoke detector. So you've got a smoke detector in your house. And, you know, sometimes those smoke detectors go off when it's not really a true threat. You know, they can go off because they're near the bathroom or, you know, in the bedroom. The steam from a hot shower is coming out and they can go off. or it can be dust that's built up on the sensors. Or I learned this last week, you're supposed to replace these things every 10 years. Every 10 years. They've been in my house 25 years. I've replaced the batteries in all of them, but you're actually supposed to replace the device every 10 years because sometimes they fail. And maybe you've had this happen, but not long ago, we had these go off in the middle of the night and they go like this.

6:22 Yeah, and when that happens, your amygdala starts firing too. And you become, you know, You're heightened awareness and you're ready and you jump out of bed. And the thing is, sometimes they've gone off and there's no fire at all. And that happens with a pretty regular basis in our lives, in our bodies. And sometimes our amygdala is hijacked. It's hyperactive. And when that happens, we can sometimes struggle with anxiety disorders. And we're going to talk more about those in a couple of weeks. But knowing the fact that whether you have anxiety disorders or not, all of us are subject to seeing things or perceiving things and leading us to be afraid when maybe we don't need to be quite so afraid. And if you do that, what you're gonna find is you'll be paralyzed, paralyzed by this. Oh, by the way, we were in South Africa a number of years. I've been to Africa a number of times on mission trips, but one of those times we were in South Africa, we went to Kruger National Park, a nature reserve at the end of the mission trip, and we had a chance to see the wild animals.

7:17 It was awesome. There was a watering hole, and we sat there for about an hour watching elephants and giraffes, and here's a few of the animals we saw there. the elephants' giraffes were on the left-hand side, but I wanted you to see these, the zebras, the warthogs, and the antelope. And now when you look at these animals, it's interesting, I focused on these because these are the most jittery of all the animals. When there is a sound, a branch falls or an animal comes, you know, walking towards them, if there's a noise, they jump. Go look at this next picture and you can see there was, you know, an animal stepped on a stick and I caught this picture as this antelope was getting ready to flee away. You can see there looks like an M on their tail ends, on their rumps, and our guide said, you know, that stands for McDonald's because they are the McDonald's of the plains out here, of the wild. And the lions, the cheetahs, the leopards, the hyenas, you know, this is food for them. I suppose if I was surrounded by those kind of animals out there in the wilderness, I might be pretty jumpy too.

8:09 But sometimes we live our lives like those kudos or those antelope, constantly afraid of every little sound of everything that happens around us. All right, so to get a sense of how fear affects us, we took the survey. 3,340 of you took the survey over the last few weeks. And I wanna thank the Gen Z and the millennials. I sent a special email out to them this last week and there was another 500 who took the survey just this week alone. But 3,340 altogether took the survey. 90% of those folks indicated they go to church. 10% said they don't go to church. So about 330 who don't go to church. The rest of them went to church. 28% were men, 72% were female. That's pretty typical for the people who read my email. And so I appreciate all you guys who actually read my email and took the time to respond in the survey as well. We had a great spread of ages, again, from the silent generation all the way down to Gen Z, so over the oldest to the youngest, over 80s and those who are under 28, 28 and under. And we just asked you a series of questions.

9:04 And I'd like to invite you to write down some of these responses. And you might even guess what they are before I share them with you. But I wanna start by saying that 83% of our people said that they struggle with some level of fear, concern, or worry with some regularity. And 31% said they struggle with significant levels of fear, worry, or concern on a regular basis. So for some, they say, I experience it and I can cope with it. It's real, but I cope with it and I go on. But 31% said this is a significant part of my life. 17% said, well, I do experience it, but only rarely, I don't really usually experience a whole lot of anxiety or fear in my life. All right, so the first question I was interested in is who is more anxious? Who is more fearful, anxious, or concerned?

9:57 Is it the older folks or the younger folks? So those 80 and up, the silent generation, or those 28 and below? And what would you say? Well, here's the response that we found. So let me just share with you. This is the data from our survey. 17% of those age 80 and older report a significant level of fear, anxiety, or concern. 17%. So what is it for those 28 and younger? Gen Z.

10:22 51%. That's three times the number of people who are in the younger generation, Gen Z, than those who are in the silent generation who report significant levels of fear, anxiety, or concern. That's surprising to some people who think, you know, their grandparents, great-grandparents seem more fearful or worried, but no, it's just the opposite. And when scholars have looked at this, researchers have looked at this and tried to understand why older adults don't seem quite as anxious, in fact, significantly less anxious and fearful as younger adults, what they typically suggest is that you've lived longer. And the longer you've lived, you survived all those things you were afraid of when you were in your 20s. And you survived the things you were worried about in your 30s. And even if you had to go through them, you found you could make it through them. And you survived those in your 40s, your 50s, your 60s, your 70s. By your 80s, you're like, you know what? It's okay. I can make it through anything. And if I don't, that's okay too. And so it's interesting what happens. And you see this each generation. So 51% of those in Gen Z report significant levels of fear, anxiety, or concern. It drops down to about 40% for those who are millennials.

11:23 It drops down to in the 30s for those who are Gen X. Millennials drop down just a little bit below that. And then finally, we have 17% among those who are older adults. That's good news. If you feel like you're struggling a lot with anxiety and it's always going to be that way, It's not always going to be that way. And you're going to find as days go by, as years go by, less and less of that concern, struggle, worry, or fear in your life. All right, who do you think is most likely to report feeling significant levels of fear, worry, or anxiety? Is it women or men? So let's just take a look and see what we found in our study. So we found 21% of men report significant levels of fear, anxiety, or concern. So I want you to notice that. One in five men report significant levels of fear, anxiety, or concern. What is it for women? And we find it's one in three, a little more than that, 35%. And so you're 50% more likely, actually it's 60% more likely as a woman to experience significant levels of fear, anxiety, or concern than men.

12:23 But both men and women experience this on a regular basis in their lives. But significant levels of it, more likely a woman than a man. All right. 10% of our survey respondents said that they don't go to church. They're not actively involved in church. So I wanted to see, does being involved in church, I mean, the premise of the sermon series is that faith makes a difference, that our faith in God makes a difference when it comes to how we process fear, anxiety, and concern or worry. And we're all going to experience those things, but how we process them. So we had 10% of our folks who said, you know, I'm not involved in church. So that was 330 people, I think. And then the rest said about 3,000 said, yes, I'm actively involved in church. So I thought, well, let's just see the difference this makes. And it's possible. I thought it's possible that maybe it makes no difference. Maybe faith is, maybe it's just, You know, there's no real serious, or some people have thought, you know, people of faith are people more likely to be fearful. But let's just see what we found here. So in this data, we found 29% of people who are regularly involved in church experience a significant level of fear, anxiety, or concern.

13:24 So what about those who are not regularly involved in church? 49%. And this is a dramatic difference between these two, reporting a significant level of fear, anxiety, or concern. Now, 51% of people not regularly involved in church don't experience that. They're experiencing more moderate levels. But 49% said, this is significant in my life. Only 29% for those who are regularly involved in church. And then asking the question just the opposite. Who rarely experiences fear, anxiety, or concern? 17% of those regularly involved in church said, I rarely experience fear, anxiety, or concern. For those who are not regularly involved in church, it's 8%. So 8% of those not regularly involved in church rarely experience fear, anxiety, or concern. So you're twice as likely to say, I rarely experience fear, anxiety, or concern if you're regularly involved in church. All right, so this data is interesting to us and it does support the idea that faith plays some component in how we cope with fear, anxiety, and concerns.

14:21 All right, so by the way, we found only 1% of the people who took the survey said they just virtually never experienced fear, anxiety, or concern. And if that's you, I'd like for you to send me a note and I'm gonna let you preach the next four weeks because I'd love to hear from you how you never, ever experience fear, anxiety, or concern. Now, the truth is, we find whether you go to church or not, human beings regularly experience fear. This is a part of life. This is why even for the saints in scripture, we find repeatedly, 140 times actually in the Bible, these words, don't be afraid or be encouraged. We're told this again and again and again. God says it directly sometimes. God says it through the angels sometimes. The prophets say it. Jesus says it. The apostles say it. And over and over again, we're told, don't be afraid. Why? Because by nature, we are going to experience fear in our lives. And again, there are times the fear is a good thing, but there are many times it's immobilizing, it's paralyzing, and we miss out on the life that God intends for us when we give into fear, which is what we find in the book of Numbers, chapters 13 and 14.

15:24 So here in this story, it's a wonderful story. Let me just remind you of what's going on. We'll look at a map of satellite image. And I just want to remind you that the Israelites, Israelites lived in the Nile River Delta in this area, and they lived there for hundreds of years. They were slaves to the Egyptians. They lived in other parts of Egypt, but primarily here. And God sent Moses to deliver them from slavery in Egypt. They crossed through what would be the Red Sea or the Reed Sea, probably the Reed Sea water and rushes that are in this area. They pass through this. God delivers them through it. They come into the Sinai, and they make their way down. Moses leads them down here to Mount Sinai. Now, some people suggest Mount Sinai is over here, over here. This is the traditional location for Mount Sinai. Whether it's there or not, I don't know. But I have been there. In fact, I took about 250 of you to Mount Sinai just before COVID. And I thought you might enjoy seeing. We hiked up the top of Mount Sinai where Moses received the law from God.

16:18 We hiked to the top while it was still dark. And then we watched the sunrise from there. I thought you might enjoy seeing it. Take a look. or you can't all be00.

16:54 It's beautiful. It's rugged. Some people say the areas there look like you're on Mars. They're just, you know, and it's hard to imagine a whole nation of people surviving out there in the wilderness. And so they stayed there. They camped out there for a period of about 11 months, during which time God gave Moses the law. During this time, he gave him instructions on building a portable tabernacle or tent, the tent of meeting. It's a worship space. It was represented God's dwelling place among the people and to build the throne of God, the symbolic throne of God, which was called the Ark of the Covenant, inside of which God had Moses place the Ten Commandments, the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments. So they're there for 11 months. And then God says, okay, now it's time for you to go to the land that I promised to your forebearer Abraham and his son Isaac and his son Jacob. And so I'm going to take you to the promised land, the land flowing with milk and honey. And so the people I'm sure are excited and Moses begins to lead them. They March, and it's at least 11 days, maybe longer than that. Deuteronomy says there's 11 days distance between the promised land and Mount Sinai, but how long it took them, we're not certain. But they make their way, and let me just show you on the map here. So they make their way from Mount Sinai, and they're heading this direction, and they make their way to Kadesh Barnea. Kadesh Barnea is right here. There's an oasis there. There's a place you could imagine them camped out for some period of time. And when they get there, they're right on the edge of the promised land. So I want you to notice these are the borders to modern day Israel right here.

18:17 And here's the Sea of Galilee up here, the Jordan River, the Dead Sea. And so those are the borders there right on the edge of the promised land. And it's there that God says to Moses, Moses, tell them to choose one man from each of the 12 tribes of Israel, and we're going to send them as spies into the land. And they're going to go all the way up to the top, the northern boundary, up into southern Lebanon. And they're going to come back through, and they were going to look at the geology, the topography. They were going to look at the, you know, the crops, the water sources. They were going to spy out the people that were there. And how was this going to go when they were bringing this new nation into the land of Canaan? And so they do that. They're gone for 40 days. When they come back, they come back bringing with them. Now remember, they're in the desert and they bring with them clusters of grapes. They bring with them pomegranates and they bring with them dates. And by the way, land flowing with milk and honey, milk, of course, from the goats, from the animals, the livestock. But honey, it could be from bees, but it also was a word that was used to describe a date syrup. And so a land flowing with milk and honey, they bring all these things back and the people see it and it's like, wow, that's going to be so awesome when we go there. And then the spies open their mouths and they say, we can't go up against the people because they are stronger than we are. So that's a kind of a bummer of a report.

19:30 You know, 10 of the 12 spies come back and they say, we just can't do it. These people are really strong. And then a numbers records, they started a rumor about the land that they had explored. telling the Israelites, the land that we crossed over to explore is a land that devours its residents. All the people we saw in it are huge men. We saw there were, there are the Nephilim, the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim. So Nephilim were giants. This was a sort of a mythical race of people who were giants. We saw the giants in the land. And then comes this line, we saw ourselves as grasshoppers. And that's how we appeared to them as well. The land devours its people, its inhabitants? How did you bring back fruit from the land? And how did you survive that experience? But you see, the more you think about the fears, the more you ruminate on them, the bigger they become. And so the land devours its people. The Nephilim, the mythical giants are in the land. We look like grasshoppers while they look like giants.

20:25 And so this fear is stirring up. And then, you know, in the midst of that, their response is, we can't do it. It's impossible. We just can't do it. Now, I want to remind you that, you know, this is not an uncommon experience for anybody. And I think of it as the grasshopper principle. So when you see something that makes you afraid, you know, your amygdala is triggering this, you know, all the possible things that could go wrong if you were to face these circumstances or these people or the situation. And so suddenly what you see is you seem much smaller and the circumstances around you, the threatening circumstances seem much, much greater. I'm reminded when I think of the grasshopper principle of the passenger mirror on your car. And you remember it's required by law to have this statement on it. This statement says, objects in mirror are closer than they appear. All right, so that's really helpful because things are really closer than what you think.

21:17 It's just the opposite with our amygdala. And when it comes to our amygdala, the things that we're afraid of, the objects in our mind, they appear bigger and more threatening than they really are. So your fears, the things you're afraid of, appear bigger and more threatening, and you appear smaller, that's the grasshopper principle. So I'm reminded of the frequently used acronym for fear, false events appearing real, false events appearing real. Now, sometimes they aren't false events. Sometimes they're real events, but they're just not as dreadful as we think they are. And sometimes things are really terribly, you know, terrifying. And we just think, how am I going to make it through this? But many times the things that we're afraid of are not nearly as, you know, as frightening as they seem to us in our minds, to our amygdala and in our hearts. And when I think about this, this false events appearing real, you know, I think of how so many times in my life, I've experienced something, I became afraid or slightly afraid, and then I ruminated on it. And then I catastrophized it, right? I turned it into a catastrophe when it really wasn't that. And by the time I played it all out, you know, the whole world was going to fall apart when in fact, it just ended up being not that big of a deal, which is what the people in their 80s discovered, right? Is they discovered that, hey, I went through this thing and it seemed terrifying at the time, but I made it through that.

22:30 And I went through this thing and I imagined all the horrible things were gonna happen and they never really happened that way. And somehow I've made it this far and I'm probably gonna make it the rest of the way on the journey. Now, Numbers tells us this. That night, all the members of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. You see, they're all catastrophizing. They had all these great hopes of what was gonna happen in the promised land. And here they are stuck in the desert and they can't do it. All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron and they said to each other, we should choose a leader and go back to Egypt. I want you to catch this. Like they spent their entire lives as slaves in Egypt. They're a mile or two from the promised land and God had delivered them and Moses was the one who led them. And here they are voting. They want to get a new leader and they want to go back and say, Pharaoh, we'll just be your slaves again. It's too scary up there. We just want to be slaves once more. I wonder in your life if fear has ever made you a slave, has ever led you to think, you know what?

23:22 I just can't do it. It's impossible. I won't do it. It's too scary. and you go back to where you've been as opposed to being able to leap forward into the promised land. We decide many times because of our fear to stay in Kadesh Barnea. Now, two of the spies spoke up. This is Joshua and Caleb. And this is what they said. The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. It's not going to devour you. If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us to that land. If God is pleased with us, he's going to be with us. It is a land flowing with milk and honey and he'll give it to us. only do not rebel against the Lord and do not be afraid of the people of the land because we will devour them. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them. But do the people listen to Joshua and Caleb? No, this is what we find. But the whole assembly talked about stoning them to death.

24:13 I mean, it's easy to find a whole lot of people who will join you in being afraid. People who will tell you all the things you should be afraid of and why, whatever great idea you had or whatever inspirational thought you had or whatever it was you were gonna do, all the reasons why it cannot succeed. Plenty of people out there who are willing to do that. So here's what happens next. You know, the glory of the Lord shows up to speak to Moses. You see the, you know, the column of fire and smoke and talking to Moses. And all of a sudden the people realize, wait, wait, God, you know, God was the one who delivered us from slavery and here God is and we better do what God asks. And so they say, Moses, we'll go, we'll go, we'll go. And God says, no, it's too late. It's too late. you are not going to get to go into the land. And some of them tried and they found themselves defeated. They didn't make it. God said, no, you're not going to get to go. Your children will get to go. But because you turned your back on me, because you failed to go by faith, you're going to spend the rest of your lives wandering here in the wilderness.

25:09 And God said, for every day that the spies were in the land of Canaan, you're going to spend a year here in the wilderness. 40 days they were there, 40 years in the wilderness. Now, they'd They already spent almost two years in the wilderness when they escaped slavery in Egypt. 38 more years, they would be camped out near the promised land, just a mile from the promised land, camped out there and finding themselves in the wilderness, paralyzed by fear, a mile from the promised land. Hey, let me just show you on this map. I'll get a little closer view here. And we find, so again, there's the Nile River Delta. Here's Kadesh Barnea. here's the border of the land of Israel right now. And they were this close. And instead of entering into this land that's flowing with milk and honey, they're gonna spend the next 38 years right here in the wilderness.

26:08 I thought you might enjoy seeing the difference between those two terrains. So this is a photograph of the Galilee on the north part of the Holy Land. And you can see the lush vegetation, and the orchards and the crops that are growing there and the Sea of Galilee is in the background. And I mean, it's just beautiful. But I want you to see the land that they ended up staying in for 38 years. Go ahead and run that tape. And this is of the Negev. and it's a wasteland. I mean, there are oases here and there, which there was an oasis at Kadesh Barnea, so there was at least some water that was there, but this is where they spent 38 years because they gave in to the fear that they had as opposed to trusting in God. This is what happens in our own lives, and I want to ask you this question. What are the giants in the land that you're afraid of? Maybe you have a vision of the promised land, something that God has called you to do, something God's asked you to do, something you experience when you're reading scripture, a dream that's welling up in your mind or your heart, a change that you need to make in your life.

27:08 And you feel God is calling you to make that change. But then you find yourself succumbing to fears, a fear of failure, rejection, you know, fear that it's going to be too dangerous, too hard. I can't do it. I just can't do it. And you find yourself like those 10 spies. You know, you're on the edge of the promised land, but you can't make yourself go because you're certain that those giants are so big and you're just a grasshopper in their sight. So I wonder, will you spend the rest of your life wandering in the wilderness of Kanish Barnea? Or will you actually have the courage to step out and take some risks and enter into the promised land? What does this look like? So in my life, oh, and I've shared some of these stories with you, but over and over again, I found that the things that were most important, the things that brought most life to me or the things that were the most significant parts of my life all came with a risk. They all came with certain fears. I remember the night before Levon and I got married. Again, we were 17 and 18 years old. We'd had the rehearsal dinner. After the rehearsal dinner, one of my family members said, I don't give you 10 years. I just don't give your marriage 10 years.

28:10 We just graduated from high school. They were probably right. And I remember going home after the rehearsal dinner and I was terrified. I'm like, what are you doing? There's no way this is going to work. And my parents were divorced. Her parents were divorced. We'd never even seen what a healthy marriage, you know, was meant to look like. And I'm just, I'm, you know, I don't have panic attacks very often, but I was, I felt that way. Panic attacks, just overly anxious. And here I was, you know, and I remember getting ready to walk in the church and I'm trying to hide that from, you know, from the people around me, but I'm like, I'm really scared. But can I tell you, this June, 44 years we'll have been married. I'm so glad I left Kadesh Barnea and entered into the promised land, right? And this is true in almost everything that happens in our lives. So, you know, I thought about, and you know, when we got married, we had $300 to our name. We went off to college, not even know if there was gonna be a scholarship or not. We moved just by faith, trusting that somehow we were gonna find out in a few weeks whether financial aid came through, right?

29:07 And somehow it did. I think about when we had our children and our first daughter, Danielle, we were living in a 500 square foot apartment. I was working on my master's degree. LeVon was working full-time. I was working nearly full-time. and we had, you know, we just had nothing. And, you know, living really pretty much at the poverty level at that point. And what business do we have having kids? And yet somehow we felt like this was what we were supposed to do. How grateful I am that we left Kadesh Barnea and we went into the promised land. I think of the dozens of examples here at Church of the Resurrection. So, you know, when we went to start the church, and some of you know the story, the day before I was assigned by the bishop to start Church of the Resurrection, one of the pastors, a leading pastor in the Missouri West annual conference where I was coming out of came to me and said, Adam, there's no way this can succeed. It is gonna fail. And when it fails, it's gonna be a bad mark on your career. It's just underfunded.

29:58 And he gave me five reasons why this new church we were starting was gonna fail. And when he left, I'm like, I'm shaking. I'm like, maybe so. And part of what I began to ask was, well, so what's the worst thing that's gonna happen? I mean, I'm only 25. If I fail at this, I'm gonna have some other chance somewhere else. Let's just go ahead and do it. And 36 years later, how grateful I am that we left Kadesh Barnea and entered into the promised land. But you know, there were giants in the land and there were all kinds of obstacles to making this thing work. I think about other examples of decisions we've made at resurrection. On a regular basis, decisions we made that were costly or they were frightening or we were uncertain and yet we went ahead and took the step. And not every one of those decisions is gonna be right. Sometimes you're gonna have things in your mind or ideas in your mind and maybe it's not what God's calling you to do. And so you get it wrong sometimes and you go back and you try over it.

30:54 You try something else, you do it a different way. But this willingness to take risks, to step out on faith, to trust God, that God is with you, that is the key to finding the promised land in your life. I've got dozens of examples I'd give you, but I wanna recount one more to you. It was 17 years ago and I mentioned this on Candlelight Christmas Eve. 17 years ago, we were sitting down as a leadership team, our church council, and I had suggested to them, I heard something a friend of mine had done. And I said, hey, what would happen if we gave away the entire Christmas Eve offering to benefit children and families living in poverty? And I remember the spirited discussion we had, you know, like, can we afford to do that? I mean, how much is a Christmas Eve offering? And the year before was, I don't know, $175,000, $200,000. And they said, well, what would happen if we, you know, if we gave that away, we just gave up that money that was in the budget. And, you know, I said, well, it'll be a special offering. And yeah, but will people go ahead and make their regular pledges? Will they fulfill their pledge if they've also given on Christmas Eve? I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. But I think we're supposed to do this. And just imagine, you know, what that would mean if we could take that money and devote it to projects benefiting children in poverty. And on Christmas Eve, with all those visitors, we could say, hey, this is what our church stands for. And so they said, well, okay. But, you know, if it doesn't work, we got to lay off four people. But we tried it anyway. Right? And, you know, over the last 17 years, you've given $24 million before this year to projects benefiting children and families in poverty. So I want to tell you what you gave on Christmas Eve this year.

32:18 So on Christmas Eve and one night or, you know, in all of our Christmas Eve services, you gave, what did you give? You gave $2,338,504.08. That's what you and all the people who joined us on Candlelight Christmas Eve gave to benefit children and families in poverty. Half of it stays in Kansas City, half of it goes around the world. Can I tell you how proud I am of you? And here's what I know is that for some of you, that was a significant sacrifice. And you're thinking, how are we going to do it? How can we make things work if we're going to give away, you know, this kind of gift and the Christmas Eve offering? But you took the risk and you took the chance and you've changed the world. And together, we've left Kadesh Barnea. And you know, we've helped other people leave Kadesh Barnea and enter into the promised land because of those kind of sacrifices. Look, any successful organization, any successful person, however you define success, is going to be somebody who's going to face up to their fears. They're going to realize, hey, I'm scared. I'm afraid. I'm not sure how it's going to work, but I'm going to take the risk anyway. I'm going to try it and see what happens. I believe God has called me to do this. I believe it's the right thing to do. And there may be a price to pay, but I'm still going to do it because it's the right thing to do. There are giants we see all around us. Like when you're leading, when you're living, when you're serving, when you're, there's gonna be giants in the land.

33:33 And they're hardly ever as giant as you imagine they are in your mind. And when God walks with you, nothing is impossible with God. I was thinking of how Mark Zuckerberg once said, the best piece of advice he ever received was this, the biggest risk you take is not taking any risk. What kind of risks have you avoided taking? Because you were afraid? Because you saw the giants in the land and you refused to believe that God was with you? How many times have you stayed in Kadesh Barnea instead of entering the promised land? I wanna mention just a couple of other examples of this for you. I think about each of you have chosen to go on a mission trip. And you know, every time you decide, I mean, I don't know a single person who on their first mission trip to some other part of the world isn't scared, isn't afraid. What's it gonna be like? What's gonna happen? And yet you work through your fears. You just say, you know, I trust that God is with me. I believe I'm supposed to do this. I'm gonna see what happens.

34:26 And I've not met a person who didn't come back saying, I'm so glad I took that risk and stepped out by faith. I think about those of you who do things here at the church to sign up to teach Sunday school with children. You think, I can't do that. How am I going to do that? Or work with teenagers and youth group or, you know, serve on serve day at Martin Luther King serve day next weekend. Like all of these, we have three mission trips coming up this spring, opportunities for you to go to Honduras or to go to Uganda or to go to the Mexican-American border, right? And I just am saying, maybe it's time for you to take a leap of faith and to say, Lord, here I am and to see what happens. And you can go to core.org slash next and you can see all these opportunities. Martin Luther King Day, next weekend when we're serving, the mission trips that are coming up this spring, all of those are there at core.org slash next. All right, your amygdala is designed to keep you from taking risks.

35:19 But the promised land will always come with risks. Listening for God's dream for your life, trusting him gives you the courage to take the risk you're meant to take, the risks that lead to life, that help you leave Kadesh Barnea behind and enter into the promised land. I'm pleading with you, don't spend your life paralyzed by fear a mile from the promised land. Let's pray. God, we thank you so much for your love for us. We thank you for the scriptures and the stories. We thank you that you gave us the gift of an amygdala so that we might be able to protect ourselves. But we also pray that you would forgive us for the times when, like the Israelites, we gave in to fear and we didn't trust you. For the times that you had set before us a vision, a dream, a promised land, and we failed to go in, camped out in the wilderness a mile from the promised land. Oh God, help us to discern the visions that are from you.

36:15 Help us to step out on faith. Help us to believe that you're going to walk with us no matter what. Grant us courage, oh Lord, to step into the promised land.