Be happy not grumpy!

And we're going to teach you a song. So you guys watch me the first time, and you guys might want to turn around to watch me. Okay, here's how the song goes. We put our arms— everyone do this— put your arms across your chest, okay, and make the grumpiest face you can make. How grumpy can you get? Big lip, maybe, if you've got a good lip that comes out nice and far. And here's how the song goes. You listen to me the first time, and then you join in. It goes like this. Grump went the little Christian one day. Grump went the little Christian. Go rump went the little Christian one day. Grump, grump, grump, grump, grump. But we all know Christians go hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. We all know Christians go hallelujah. They don't go grump, grump, grump. Okay, let's turn back around and let's all do it together. You guys ready? I reckon you can do it good. So grumpy faces, arms crossed. We're a bunch of grumpy people. Ready? Go rump went the little Christian One day, go rump went the little Christian. Go rump went the little Christian one day. Grump, grump, grump, grump, grump. But we all know Christians go hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. We all know Christians go hallelujah. They don't go grump, grump, grump. Thank you very much, guys. You can sit back down. You guys did a great job. Do you want to give a hand to the group that was up here leading out? Fantastic. I have to tell you a story about 10 very grumpy men. There was 12 of them, but 10 of them were really grumpy. You see, what had happened is God had said, "I want my people to be free from being slaves in Egypt." You remember the story we just heard about Joseph going to Egypt? Well, after he got there, long after that, they turned them into slaves, and the whole nation was slaves. But God said, "I want my people to be free." And so he sent Moses, and Moses helped the people to leave Egypt. But then they got to the Jordan River, and the people looked across and they said, "That's where the other people live, the scary people in the big cities. We can see one of their walls, it's really huge." And Moses said, "But God promised to give it to you." You know what he called it? God called it the Promised Land. Why do you think he called it the Promised Land? Yeah? Because he promised it. Because he promised to give it to them. And yet when they showed up, you know what they said? "Oh, I don't know if we can do it." I don't know if we can go over there and we can win. And so Moses said, well, why don't we do this? Let's take one man from each of the 12 tribes, send them across, and they can have a look, and they can come back and tell us what they've seen. And so they took one man out of each tribe, and they made this little pack of 12 men, and late one night they snuck through the river, they swam across the river in the dark, and they got out and they hid somewhere. They mixed into the city the next morning there in Jericho, and they started looking around, and they tried to mix in and look just like everyone else, and they had a look. And 10 of the men were going, "Oh, these walls are so huge. There's no way we'll ever be able to knock these walls down." And the other 2 men were looking at it going, "This is a really nice city. You know, if God's promised to give this to us, this is going to be a great place to live." And then they left the city and they're walking through the fields. And as they're walking through these fields, the 2 men, the happy 2, Caleb and Joshua, They're looking around and they're going, "Oh, look at all the cows. Look at all the cows. Think of all the milk. This is gonna be a land just flowing with milk. This is fantastic." And the other 10 are going, "Oh, look at all the cows. Oh, that's just— oh, what did I just step in? Oh, that's disgusting. I can't believe there's so many cows in this country. Ew." And they're walking in, the 10 are going, "Wow, there's going to be so much meat and so much milk. This is a great gift that God's giving us." But the other 10 are saying, "Oh, this is— look at— oh, it stinks. Is there anywhere else that doesn't stink in this country?" And so they walk up over a mountaintop and they crawl really quietly to the top of the mountaintop. And they look down, and way down in the valley they see people. But they can even tell from that far away that they're not little people, they're huge people, they're giants. And the 10 say, "Oh no, giants, we could never, never, never beat giants. There's no way that we could fight against huge giants like that, even if we, like David way back when, you know, when he got his sling going, I don't think we could do it. I don't think, there's too many of them. There was only one Goliath, there's too many of them. We can't do it." And the other 2 are thinking, "Oh, do you know what the best thing about fighting a giant is?" The taller they are, the harder they fall. Boom! That's gonna make a big dust storm when those two guys fall down. And all of them just kaboom, kaboom, kaboom. It's gonna be like playing dominoes. I can't believe God has given us this awesome country. And then they're walking back down the mountain, and they're coming through a grove of trees, and one of the 10 goes, "Ah!" "What was that?" "I don't know. I heard something. It went right past my ear. Really loud noise. It was like zzz." They said, "Oh, it's probably a bee." "Oh, not bees. I hate bees. Bees sting." And then sure enough, bees everywhere. "Ah!" The twins start running around and they're trying, "Get the bees off me. I'm going to get stung. I hate bees. Oh, ouch, I got stung. Ow, ow, ow." And the other children are going, "Hey guys, guys, guys, quiet. Wait a minute. Follow them." "What?" "Follow the bees." "Why? If you follow them, they'll sting you." "No, no, no. Bees go to their hive." Honey. Honey is yummy. And there's so many bees. There's gotta be some good honey around here. Let's follow them. And so the 2 are following the bees, and the other 10 are standing there going, what are you guys doing following the bees? You're gonna get stung. I don't care if we get stung. We're gonna find the honey. And they find the honey. They follow these bees, and the bees are all going down into this grove of trees, and they go in there and they look up, And there is this huge nest. How many of you have ever had honeycomb? Have you ever had honeycomb just broken straight out of— oh, is it good? Yeah. Oh, it's so good. And Joshua and Caleb come walking back with big slabs, big chunks of honeycomb. Who wants some honeycomb? They're like, what's honeycomb? Well, you'd know if you went to the honey. It's just delicious. It's like honey on bread already, just ready to eat. Oh, I guess we could try some. And Joshua and Caleb are sitting there, "Mmm, it's so good!" They've got honey all over their faces and it's running down the front of them. "Oh, this is delicious!" And the other 10 go, "Oh, it's sticky! It's sticky! It's gonna get all over us!" "Just try some, guys. You'll love it." "Oh, okay." "How do you bite it? It's gross! It's sticky!" "Just put it in your mouth." Pushes it in. Oh, that is so sweet! That's too sweet! How can you guys just be eating that? It's honey! What do you mean it's too sweet? Oh, I don't know. Can we just go back? Well, I, I guess we can, but you guys are real complainers. Well, there's just only bad things in this place. And so they start making their way back, and as they're walking through the fields, you know, there was a rule back then that if somebody walked by the edge of a field, they were allowed— it wasn't stealing— to reach just into what you could reach from the road and take some of what was ever on the field. It was to feed travelers and to feed poor people. And so as they're walking along, they're just sampling some of the stuff, and there's trees with branches hanging over the road, and they're picking pomegranates. Have you ever had a pomegranate? Oh, they're magic. Pomegranates are really strange though. When you open them up They've got all these little seeds in them, bright fiery kind of red seeds, and if you ever squeeze one too close to your clothes, they have a homing beacon and they just go for your white clothes. Just squirt you. And once it's in there— I lived in Hawaii when I was a kid for a while and we had pomegranates. Once the pomegranate gets on your shirt, the pomegranate is on your shirt. There's nothing mom can do to get the pomegranate off your shirt. And so these 10 spies are watching as the 2 spies are going, "Oh, pomegranates." These are cool. They're ripping them open and, ah, and just red stuff going all down. They're like, you're staining your clothes. They're like, it's okay, it's so delicious. You've got to try one. No way. Okay, look, I'll get one of the little seeds out there. Open your mouth. Here, chew on that. Oh, there's a seed in the middle of it. Oh, you guys, do you complain about everything? And finally they go and they're almost to the river and they're going past some trees that have figs hanging on them. They grab some of those figs and they're, They have pomegranates in their pockets and figs in their pockets, and then they see, just when they're almost back to the river, a field of grapes. And the Bible says that K— that Caleb and Joshua brought back a bunch of grapes. Now, you guys know when you go to the shops and you get a bunch of grapes, you hold it up by the stalk and it kind of divides off into a couple little bunches. Well, this bunch of grapes, they'd taken it off, broken it off at the stalk, and hung it over a bar between them. It was that big. And they put this wooden rod through the break or the branches in this one cluster of grapes. How big do you think the grapes must have been if the branches were that big? They must have been— and you can actually— I've seen fairly big grapes, but these grapes must have been like apples. And they're carrying this huge thing of grapes, and they're carrying pockets full of pomegranates, and they're carrying pockets full of figs. They are weighed down with the bounty of this land. The Promised Land, and look at all the stuff we've been promised. And somehow, with all their stuff, they still beat the other 10 spies. Joshua and Caleb came into the camp first, and they start handing out figs. Check out this fig. Check out this pomegranate. Look at the size of these grapes. And people are just going, "Oh, this is so much better than desert food." And they're just eating it. "Thank you so much. Is this— this came from the Promised Land?" "Yeah, and there's stuff we couldn't bring back. We couldn't bring back the honeycomb because It was sticky, but it was too yummy, and we ate it all. And we couldn't bring back the cows, 'cause they were too heavy, but there is so much milk. There's just cows everywhere. It's gonna be fantastic. God has promised us. Oh, and the cities are amazing. When we move over there and we move into these cities, whoa, it's gonna be cool. And then the 10 showed up, and they saw all the people all excited. They said, "What are you guys excited about?" Joshua and Caleb, they've told us all about the Promised Land. "Is beautiful." "Oh, is that what they said? Did they tell you about the cow pies?" "The what?" "The cows. They make messes on the ground, and there's lots of cows, lots of mess. Did they tell you about all the bees? Did they tell you about the giants?" And the people scream, "Giants! Giants! No, they didn't say anything about giants." "Well, we were like grasshoppers compared to them. They were huge, and you know what do they— what do you do to a grasshopper when you see it? Boom! Well, that's what they're going to do to us. There's nothing. We're going to die." And the people started listening to the 10 spies, and they ignored Joshua and Caleb. And God said, "I can't force you to take what I promised you. I promised to give it to you, but if you don't want it, you can go back into the desert, and you can march around until you want it." And do you know they did? They marched around for 40 more years. And at the end of the 40 years, there was only 2 of the 10 spies still alive. Who do you think they were? The happy 2, Joshua and Caleb. You know, there's a really great story that I heard once about a farmer. And he was working in his barn and he heard his donkey, "Ee-aw!" He said, "What was that? That donkey? That's my old donkey. What's he going on about? Ee-aw! I better go find out." So he walks out to the back paddock and he gets out there and there's his old donkey that hasn't done a day's work for 3 or 4 years because it's retired. She's an old donkey. And he says, "What are you ee-awing about?" Can't see the donkey. Looks under the tree, can hear it. Ee-yah! Goes out into the field and looks around. No donkey. Sees a break in the fence. Oh, she's gone through the fence. Goes out and looks, and there in an old abandoned well, the donkey has broken through the boards that the farmer had across the top of the well, and she's in the bottom of the well. The farmer looks down. Oh, oh girl, what are we going to do? We can't get you out of there. And he's kind of sad, but he goes back to the barn and he gets his shotgun. And he's going to have to put her out of her misery. He's got a big pile of dirt there next to the well that he's been meaning to fill it in, but he hasn't done it yet. And he thinks, "I'll just—" Then he picks up a shotgun shell and says, "Uh, that cost me $2. That donkey's not worth $2." Puts the shotgun shell away and just grabs the shovel and the wheelbarrow. Goes out, fills the wheelbarrow with dirt, and pours it in on the donkey. Ee-yah! Just decided he would just bury her alive. And then another wheelbarrow, another wheelbarrow, and each one the donkey, she, ee-yah, and she shakes, and the dirt falls off and she steps up. And the next load of dirt, shake it off, step up, shake it off, step up. And guess what? Pretty soon the donkey was at the top of the well. And then he climbed out. The donkey climbed out of the well. And do you know, that's a choice that you and I can make. We can either get buried alive We can choose to be happy. We can shake it off and step up. And that's what I'd like to challenge you guys to think about, is that Jesus says if you shake it off and step up, you'll have a great life. Be like the 2 spies and not the 10.