What God Really Wants from You This Year

If you don’t really see things clearly, correctly, and truthfully, you may think you’re living in the light, but you’re not. You’re really living in the darkness, and you’re missing all the wonderful things that God has in store for you and for your future because you just can’t see it.

Proverbs 29:18 says this, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Now, what does that mean? Well, there are at least three results of not having a vision for your life. I want you to write these down. An unclear vision leads to three things: it leads to indecision, it leads to division, and it leads to a collision.

First, an unclear vision leads to indecision. Do you remember this verse from our study of James, James chapter 1, verse 8? “Double-minded people can’t make up their minds. They waver back and forth in everything they do.” Without a vision for your future, you’re just drifting. You wander, and you ramble through life.

You’re not really living; you’re just existing. You don’t have any goal, purpose, plan, or meaning. You just kind of let life happen to you. When you don’t have a vision, you waste time and you miss opportunities. You don’t make the most of what you’ve been given.

And without a vision, you’re a poor steward of life. You end up just coasting, and you know when you’re coasting, you’re always headed downhill. So, it causes this indecision. Second, an unclear vision leads to division. Division. It causes people to go different directions in different ways, to be divided on things.

If you aren’t sure where you’re headed, don’t expect anybody else to go with you, to marry you, to agree with you, or to partner with you because everybody’s going to head off in a different direction since no one has a clear path. You know, this lack of clear vision is one of the causes of all the division in America right now.

Here’s an interesting verse from Proverbs 28, verse 2 in The Message. It says this, “When a country is in chaos, everybody has a plan to fix it.” Okay, they’re all going in different ways and different directions—division. But it takes a leader of real understanding to straighten things out. Vision is the answer to division.

The third thing that happens when you don’t have a clear vision for life is a collision. In other words, without a clear direction for your life, it is inevitable that at some point in your life, you’re going to crash into some kind of dead end. And you know, for many people, when you think about it—and I’ve met a lot of people—life’s just a series of collisions.

Relational collisions, confrontations, financial crashes, and personal crises come one after another. They go from one dead-end relationship to the next, or from one dead-end job to the next. Life’s kind of like a bumper car ride. You just keep bumping into everybody else, and you get hit from all sides. Now, the Bible warns us of the damage of not following God’s vision for our lives.

First Timothy chapter 1, verse 19 says this in God‘s Word Translation, “Some people have refused to let their faith guide their conscience, and their faith has been destroyed like a wrecked ship.” That’s a collision. On the other hand, having a vision for your future requires hard work.

That’s why a lot of people don’t have one. It requires faith. It requires thinking. It requires prayer and seeking God—all the things we’re going to talk about in this series. And if you just make up a vision for your life, well, that’s no better than coasting. What you want is God’s vision for your life, and that is the result of seeing things clearly—seeing with eyes of faith rather than eyes of fear.

We’re going to look at that today in just this introductory message. You know, in the Bible, Jesus has a lot to say about your vision, about how you see things, and about blindness. In fact, in the Bible, blindness is always a metaphor for having a closed mind. When He talks about people who are blind, He’s talking about how their minds are closed.

They’re not open to new ideas. They’re not open to what God wants to say. Matthew chapter 6, verses 22 and 23 is a passage we’ll come back to in this series on vision because Jesus said this. Listen closely and look at this verse: “Your eyes are the lamp of your body. And if your eyes are open and good, your whole body will be full of light.”

“But if your vision is bad—” I just got new glasses, so I’ve got good vision again. “If your vision is bad, your whole life will be full of darkness.” And He says, “If the light that you think you have is really darkness, it is the worst kind of darkness you can have.” Now, Jesus is saying that if you don’t really see things clearly, correctly, and truthfully, you may think you’re living in the light, but you’re not.

You’re really living in the darkness, and you’re missing all the wonderful things that God has in store for you and for your future because you just can’t see it. Now, we’ve all heard the expression, “What you see is what you get.” And in many ways, that’s actually a biblical statement.

We’re going to look at the implications of that idea through many scripture verses during this series on vision. But what I want to do today is just introduce a series on God’s vision for your future. And I want us to go back to a story in the Old Testament that involves Moses and the Jewish slaves who had been freed by God from 400 years of slavery in Egypt.

Now, here’s the background of the story. We’re going to look at Numbers 13 and Numbers 14. Here’s the background: In the book of Numbers, God had promised these freed slaves a homeland of their own, and He calls it the Promised Land. “I’m going to set you free from Egypt, and I’m going to take you to the Promised Land.” It represented their future.

It represented their inheritance that God wanted them to enjoy. It would become the land of Israel. Now, after crossing the desert—they’ve gone through the Red Sea and crossed the desert—all these freed slaves come to the edge of the Promised Land, and Moses chooses 12 representatives, one from each of the 12 tribes, to go ahead of everybody else and spy out the land.

And he says, “I want you to go and check it all out and return with the vision report. This is a fact-finding mission. In other words, it’s a vision trip.” And Moses says, “Go into the new land that represents our future, and find out everything you can. Find out what it’s like, see everything you can see, then come back and report to us on everything you have seen. This is a vision trip.”

Numbers chapter 13, verses 17 through 20 says this, “Moses gave the men these instructions as he sent them out to explore the new land: ‘Go northward through the Negev into the hill country, and see what that land is like. And find out whether the people living there are strong or weak, few or many.'”

“‘What kind of land do they live in? Is it good or bad? Do the towns have walls? Are they unprotected? How’s the soil? Is it fertile or poor? Are there many trees? Enter the land boldly and bring back samples of the crops you see.'” If you’re taking notes, circle that phrase, “you see.” Now, why did Moses do this? Because Moses was a great leader.

Why did he send these spies on a vision trip and ask for a report? Here’s the reason. Listen to this. If you’re a leader, this is really important: Before people can succeed with a goal, they have to see the goal. If you’re a leader, you need to understand that. We can only accomplish the impossible if we first see it in our minds.

Everything that’s ever been accomplished in history started as an idea in somebody’s mind first. You have to imagine it. You have to see it. Sometimes you have to taste it, but you definitely have to visualize it. And that’s why I’m going to teach you, at the beginning of this year, a new series on getting God’s vision for your life.

Now, Numbers chapter 13, verses 21 through 23 says this, “So they sent spies in. They spied out the land all the way from the wilderness up to Hebron. And there they saw—” circle that word, “they saw”—”the Ahimanites, the Sheshaites, and the Talmaites, all the families descended from Anak.” Now, by the way, don’t confuse these tribes with termites, parasites, satellites, and stalactites.

Those are completely different tribes. But it says when they came to Eshcol, they cut down a cluster of grapes so large that it took two of them to carry it back on a pole. Can you imagine that? A cluster of grapes! They also took samples of pomegranates and figs. This Promised Land was so fruitful and so incredibly prosperous that they’re bringing back giant fruit.

You know, I grew up in Northern California in the redwoods and in the wine country. And as a kid, every season, I cut grapes in vineyards at harvest. But I never saw a cluster of grapes so large that it took two men to carry it. This is supernatural. This is a Miracle-Gro crop.

Numbers chapter 13, verses 25 and 26 says this, “After seeing—” there’s the word “seeing”; this is a vision trip—”after seeing the land for 40 days, the men returned to Moses and Aaron and the people of Israel waiting at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran. They reported to the whole community what they had seen, and they showed them the fruit they had taken from the land.”

Now, all this sounds really promising, but there’s a problem, and it has to do with their vision. That’s why we’re sharing this story. Two of the spies—there were 12 spies—two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, looked at their future with eyes of faith. But the other 10 of the 12 spies looked at their future with the eyes of fear. Okay? So, let’s get into this. Now, you know the story.

Looking at the future with fear, which 10 of the 12 spies did, causes all kinds of problems. In fact, this story illustrates about five or six of the traps that we fall into. Why don’t you write these down? Here’s what happens when you look at the new year or you look at the future with fear instead of faith.

Number one, we learn from this story, I overemphasize the negative. When I look at the future in fear, I overemphasize the negative in life. Verses 27 and 28 state, “This was their report to Moses: ‘We arrived in the land you sent us to see, and it is indeed a magnificent country, a land flowing with milk and honey. Here’s some of the fruit as proof.'”

“‘But—'” Now, circle the word “but” because when you get to “but,” you’re going to see with eyes of fear. Here’s the conflicting information: “‘But the people living there are powerful, and their cities and towns are fortified and very large. And we also saw the Anakim, the descendants of Anak, who live in the desert.'”

Now, the Anakim were not of the tribe of Skywalker, and the force was not strong with them. If you believe that, yeah, I’ve got some land to sell you, too. When you overemphasize the negative, it creates a lot more stress in your life. When you’re looking at everything with fear, you worry that the glass is always half empty, instead of being happy and grateful that the glass is still half full.

Look at what you have left, not what you’ve lost. Now, of course, life is filled with negatives. Everything is broken by sin on this earth. Not all news is positive. But you do have a choice in choosing what you’re going to focus on and what you’re going to emphasize, and that is going to directly affect your happiness in this new year.

So, the spies brought back conflicting news. Two of the spies had eyes of faith, and they gave positive news. Okay? But 10 of the spies had eyes of fear, and they delivered negative news. By the way, I think that ratio in news is probably still true today. For every one positive news story, you’re going to hear five negative news stories.

And experts tell us that negative news spreads about 10 times faster on social media than positive news. So, I focus on the negative when I’m looking with eyes of fear. Number two, the second trap, I pay too much attention to what other people are doing. I pay too much attention to what others are doing.

Numbers chapter 13, verse 29 says this—they’re focusing not on the beauty and the value of the land, but they say, “The Amalekites live in the Negev, and the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country, and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan River.” What are they saying here? What’s the point? It’s a scarcity mentality.

What they’re saying is, “There won’t be enough for us this year. All the good land is already taken by other tribes. There’s really no room for us in this Promised Land. There aren’t enough resources for everybody.” Now, if you look at this new year with eyes of fear, you too are going to develop a scarcity mentality, which is going to create stress in your life, making it feel like there’s not enough.

And you will say, “All the good experiences are gone. All the good jobs are already taken. All the good houses are already bought. All the good husbands are married.” You’re going to look around with a scarcity mentality. No. You have to look with the eyes of faith.

Number three, the third trap that we see from this story when we look at the future with fear instead of faith: I underestimate the abilities that God has given me. I underestimate the abilities God has given me when I look at the future with fear because seeing life with eyes of fear causes you to bury your talents.

You know that story that Jesus told. Numbers chapter 13, verse 31, the men who had gone with Caleb said, “We can’t.” Circle that: “We can’t.” “We can’t attack those people. They are stronger than we are.” They’re underestimating their own ability. Did you know the people who always say, “I can’t,” and the people who always say, “I can,” are both right? Why? Because fear creates self-fulfilling prophecies.

If you have a vision based on fear rather than faith, it’s going to limit you for your entire life. You’re going to miss opportunities, you’re going to waste talent that God has put inside you, and you’re going to set yourself up with self-fulfilling and self-defeating predictions.

You know, this happened. Job says in Job chapter 3, verse 25, “What I have always feared has happened to me, and what I have dreaded has now come to be.” Let me ask you a very personal question: What are you setting yourself up for in this new year? What are you setting yourself up for just with your attitude? How are you seeing yourself? Are you looking at your own abilities as inadequate or incapable?

Are you looking at your life in faith or in fear? The spies with fear-based vision saw themselves as inadequate. Verses 32 and 33 state that they said, “The land we explored devours those living in it.” What a hyperbole! “The land we explored devours those living in it?” He says, “All of the people we saw there are of great size.”

He says, “We saw giants there.” The Hebrew word is Nephilim. By the way, the Hebrew word for handsome is not “Pastor Rick” in Hebrew. “We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” You see what they’re saying here? We see ourselves as insects waiting to be devoured.

That word “devour” in Hebrew actually means to eat up. They said, “These people are going to eat our lunch.” And they’re Nephilim. They’re giants. They’re bullies. They’re tyrants. They’re NFL linebackers. It’s a great size, and they say, “We saw ourselves as grasshoppers in our own eyes.” That’s a pretty pathetic self-image. We’re insects. We’re bugs. They’re going to squash us. We’re going to smash against the windshield.

And then they say, “We saw ourselves—” notice that sentence—”we saw ourselves as grasshoppers, and we looked the same to them.” What are they doing? They’re projecting their fears onto others. That’s one of the problems of a fear-based vision; you project your fears onto everybody else. If you think you look a certain way, you think everybody else thinks you look that way. That’s a problem. It’s a trap.

Number four, the fourth trap of vision with fear instead of faith is I infect others with my negativity. I infect others with my negativity. Did you know that fear is contagious? Did you know parents can pass on fear to kids, and it can actually be passed from generation to generation? Verse 32 says, “They spread a bad report about the land they had explored.”

They didn’t just keep it to themselves. This is what happens when you become afraid: you start talking trash, you start talking negatively, you start complaining, and you start griping. By the way, this is why the Bible tells you not to hang out with negative people. Did you know that in Proverbs, it says many times, “Don’t hang out with scoffers and cynics. Don’t hang out with negative people, critics, and complainers”?

You know, one of the things I noticed in 2020—and you probably noticed it, too—was how many conspiracy theories popped up during the pandemic. Oh my goodness. We had more conspiracies in one year than we had in a decade or decades. And the problem was many Christians were falling for those theories, too.

And they were actually passing them on. Why? Because they were hanging out with the wrong people. They were listening to negative reports. They were listening to negative news sources. You know what? If you start hearing some conspiracies this year, let me give you a verse to go back to. It’s Isaiah chapter 8, verse 12.

Here’s what it says, Isaiah 8:12, “Don’t say that everything people call a conspiracy is a conspiracy, and don’t fear what they fear. Don’t let it terrify you.” That’s what God wants you to do. Don’t think every conspiracy is a conspiracy. Don’t fear what they fear, and don’t let it terrify you.

Number five, a fifth trap if you don’t have eyes of faith is I make myself miserable. When I look at my life and I look at the future with eyes of fear, I just make myself miserable. Here’s what happened after they came back with this fear-based report, Numbers chapter 14, verses 1 and 2: “Then all the people began weeping aloud.”

Okay? They’re crying, and they cried all night. And they grumbled, and they complained in a great chorus against their leaders—Moses and Aaron, the guys who led them out of slavery. Against their leaders, Moses and Aaron, they said, “We wish we had died in Egypt or even here in the wilderness! Are you kidding me?” They wailed. They’re having a full-blown pity party. “We would have rather stayed slaves than have to face what we’re going to face in the future. We would have rather died in the desert than have to face the future because we’re so afraid.”

Now, that’s a very important verse because you can know that you’re looking at life with eyes of fear when the four warning lights that are in that verse show up in your life. When these four things show up in your life, you know, “I’m not looking at the future with faith; I’m looking at the future with fear.” Notice the four things.

Your sadness increases. It says they cried all night. They were depressed. And sometimes our depression is caused by fear. Depression can be caused by a lot of different things, but sometimes it can be caused by fear. Your sadness increases.

Number two, your complaining increases. Has your spouse noticed you complaining more lately? It says they grumbled and they complained. Why? Because they were afraid. They were afraid. Okay?

Third, you start second-guessing your leaders. It says they grumbled and complained in a great chorus against their leaders, Moses and Aaron. They said, “We wish you hadn’t led us here. You’re doing a lousy job of leading us.”

And fourth, you want to go backward. You want to go back to a prior time. They said, “It would have been better for us to have died in Egypt.” You don’t want any of those things, but those are signs that you’re living based on a vision of fear rather than a vision of faith.

So, what’s the antidote? Well, that’s what we’re going to look at in the days ahead. This is just an introduction. But the antidote in a sentence is: you need to develop a life vision of faith. You need to develop a life vision of it. You need to see with eyes of faith, not eyes of fear. And I’m going to teach you how to do that during this series.

As I said, this is just the intro. Now, there were two guys who provided the minority report, and they were Caleb and Joshua. They were the only two guys who eventually got to go into the Promised Land. The rest of them died in the desert. God let them die out there. Numbers chapter 13, verse 30, here’s what Caleb said in faith:

Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and he said, “We should go at once. We should take possession of the land right now. We can certainly do this.” He said, “Well, let’s do it right now. Stop defeating yourself with the paralysis of analysis. Do it now.” You defeat fear not by arguing against your fears.

You defeat fear with movement. Not by discussing it, not by focusing on it, but by opposing it and doing the thing you fear the most. That’s what Caleb said. Then, in verses 6 to 9 of Numbers chapter 14, here’s what Joshua said. He’s the other guy who had eyes of faith. He said, “We saw the land ourselves, and it’s very good.”

He says the future looked great. “If we obey the Lord, He will surely give us that land rich with milk and honey.” In other words, we’re depending on the promise of God. So, he says, “Don’t rebel.” He said, “Don’t rebel. We have no reason to be afraid of the people who live there.”

“The Lord is on our side, and they won’t stand a chance against us. One plus God is a majority.” God plus you—you know, if God is for us, who can be against us? Now, here’s the problem. Sadly, they chose to believe the majority report of fear, not the minority report of faith. And they all died in the desert over the next 40 years until a new generation grew up, and they would be allowed to go into the Promised Land.

One of the saddest verses in the Bible is Hebrews chapter 3, verse 19, which says this, “So we see that they—the people who were the slaves that had been freed—they were not able to enter the Promised Land because of their unbelief.” That’s one of the saddest verses in the Bible, and it makes me wonder when I read it, what blessing of God am I missing out on, me personally, because of my unbelief?

What blessing of God am I missing out on because of my own unbelief? To me, hell would be if God were to show me what He could have done in my life if I had believed Him just a little bit more. And I want to ask you this question as we start a brand new year: what blessing of God are you missing right now simply because you don’t believe? You don’t believe it. Your unbelief. You’re looking at the future with eyes of fear, not the eyes of faith.

Now, the starting point—we’re going to get into all the details in this series, but the starting point for getting God’s vision for your life, obviously, is to first put your trust in Jesus Christ if you haven’t done that. You need to ask Him to put His Spirit into your life. It’s the only way you’ll ever be able to see with eyes of faith, and it’s the only way you’ll ever be able to get God’s vision.

John chapter 3, verse 3, Jesus said this, “Unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.” You can’t see it. You can’t see God’s vision unless you’re born again. So you need to see, when you’re born physically, you get five senses: hear, taste, touch, smell, and see.

When you’re spiritually reborn—born again—you get a new set of eyes. You can see things you didn’t see before. You can hear things you couldn’t hear before. You sense things you didn’t sense before. Unless you’re born again, you can never see all that God has in store for your life. So, here’s the first step that I want you to start just this week:

Stop listening to your feelings, stop looking in fear, and start living in faith. Believe that God’s going to help you in this New Year. Believe God will help you, and you will see God help you. I’ll end with this story. You know, Jesus had some friends: Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.

They were two sisters and a brother, and Lazarus died, and Jesus raised him back to life. And when He did, He reminded Mary and Martha in John chapter 11, verse 40, saying, “Didn’t I tell you that you will see God’s glory if you believe?” You will see God’s glory if you believe. So, here’s my question: How badly do you want to see God’s glory in your life? You have to stop nursing your worries; they just get bigger.

You have to make some commitments in faith. You have to step out and move against your fears. I want to pray a prayer, and I want to pray for two different groups. First, if you have never given your life to Christ, it’s time to be born again. Then, you can start seeing with spiritual eyes.

And if you are already a Christian, would you stop listening to the negative reports? Would you go over these five things we just talked about and say, “God, I don’t want that in my life. I don’t want that in my life in this New Year”? Let’s bow for prayer. Father, I thank you that you have a great new future for us.

You said, “I know the plans I have for you, plans for good, not to harm you, but to prosper you.” And so I pray today, as we start a new year together, that we would lay aside the eyes of fear and begin to see with eyes of faith, and that we would get your vision for our lives. We don’t want division in our lives. We don’t want a collision in our lives.

We don’t want the negativity of indecision in our lives. What we want is you. If you’ve never invited Christ into your life, why don’t you say this, “Jesus Christ, I want to be born again. I ask you to put your Spirit in my life. I realize I need you. Forgive all my sins and help me to follow you.”

“I want to learn to trust you and love you, and I want to see your vision, your purpose, and your plan for my life in this new year. Please accept me into your family.” For those of you who have already prayed that prayer, pray this, “Father, today I want to switch from eyes of fear to eyes of faith, and I don’t want to fall for any of these traps that we just looked at in today’s text.”

“Instead, I want to trust you, expect great things from you, and attempt great things for you. I want to be a man of vision. I want to be a woman of vision, and I ask you to give me your vision in Jesus’ name. Amen.”