Hall of Faith - Leadership of Moses: Fearful, Frustrating, & Faithful

How many of us have had to say “no” to something in order to say “yes” to God? Things such as a relationship, a job opportunity, etc…following Jesus will interfere with our life! At some point you’ll have to learn to say no to some things in order to say yes to God.

Lately I’ve been excited that Ellie finally learned how to use the word yes in conversation with us. For over a year she’s known “no” and how to use it well. With toddlers it takes some training to say yes. With Christians it also takes training when we’re immature Christians to say yes to our God. But in Christianity our use of the word “no” is just as powerful and just as necessary.

You can’t always say yes, otherwise you’ll always be trying please people and stretch yourself to far, which means you won’t have time for family or for yourself. It’s true for our personal lives and our spiritual lives. To be a good disciple we have to learn to say no at certain points and for certain things. You can’t just be indifferent and continually beat around the bush. We need a strong “no” at times in order to give a strong “yes” to God.

The Bible doesn’t ignore the failures of key people. In fact, God often highlights them and shows how if you’re someone who has faith in Him, then He will grow you and transform you into something better.

(PPT) Like most people, Moses didn’t start out quite so strong as a leader. He was timid and unsure, he was willing to talk himself out of being faithful and being mighty for God. Why? Because when he tried before to be of help he got burned. You ever been there? Trying to do the right thing but end up in a tight spot or hurtful situation anyway? It’s easy to let something like that deter you from trying again - ask me how I know...

(PPT) Exodus 3-4 - FEARFUL

Moses made many excuses so that he wouldn’t have to say yes to God, so he wouldn’t have to be quite so invested.

(PPT) Moses Excuses: “tried to help, didn’t work” (3:11); “who will I say this decision is really from, who is at the helm?” (3:13); “they won’t listen or take me seriously!” (4:1); “I can’t, I’m not capable of this” (4:10); “Someone else needs to do it, not me” (4:13).

It wasn’t that he thought God’s plan was bad or didn’t agree with the need to rescue the Israelites. But Moses was saying no to the wrong thing. Why? Because he was counting on himself and his own ability rather than reliance on God. Moses was too timid to say “Yes”.

And we find ourselves in the same predicament because the situation seems too overbearing and too much for us. The same sun that melts butter hardens clay. That means it’s the material, not the sun. Are you gonna melt and run off making excuses, or are you going to plant yourself firmly in God to stop making excuses and start making progress?

Listen to what God says because it still rings true!!

(PPT) God’s responses: “I’m with you, I’m sufficient, know me and trust me, I made you and will use you and grow you, and I have expectations for you to act in faith!”

For every doubt that tempted Moses to say no, God had an answer for why he should say yes. And every answer revolves around Trust and Dependence on God.

Dependence on God would become the cornerstone of Moses’ leadership. That is really the cornerstone of any Christian life, not just leaders.

(PPT) Numbers 20:8-13 - FRUSTRATION

The Wilderness brought challenges, some of which resulted in failures. Often the challenges of the wilderness situation were from the fellow journeymen not even the conditions of the wilderness. Of all the things that posed the most problems to Moses’ faithfulness it was the lack of faithful of those around!

The wilderness preaches both endurance in God and accountability with God.

Have you ever had anyone question your decisions? It’s not easy to deal with. It puts the failure or success on you instead of being shared. It makes you feel insecure. It makes you doubt an already decided and acted upon choice. Moses dealt with it and it probably seemed like it was constant.

The Israelites thought the Egyptians would overtake them at the Red Sea, that they’d starve to death or die of thirst, they doubted God’s power, that Moses would return off of MT Sinai, and ultimately that God would help them conquer the promised land.

When there are those that doubt and complain it easily causes frustration for leaders and others around. Frustration is not a sin, but we must be careful what we do in times we deal with it.

(PPT) V.12, When Moses let the frustration get the better of him he didn’t say yes to keeping God Holy in his actions.

V.13, the Israelites were contending against God and not having faith as they should. That caused Moses to be frustrated with them. That happens to us too! But the response was wrong, out of frustration mistakes were made. Frustration wasn’t the problem though, we can be frustrated and aggravated yet still choose to do the better thing and the things that say that I’m honoring God as holy.

Have you ever been discouraged doing the Lord’s work? It’s OK to admit it, we all probably have. I hear about so many hurt by the Church, many people criticizing the Church for one reason or another, claiming it’s becoming irrelevant…heres the thing: when we talk about the Church we’re also talking about people. And every one of us have our hang ups and problems. So you can’t be surprised when someone missteps or something doesn’t go your way.

The Church is perfect, God didn’t hurt you, a person did! And that’s sad yes when Christians don’t act like Christ. But it happens. And when we keep our focus on the more important things we’re able to set those things aside for the greater good and understand that this is about something bigger so i need to move past my momentary frustrations and hurt feelings. No, we’re not making light of anything that may have happened to you because unfortunately there are those that really have dealt with tragic things with the Church and fellow Christians. But at the end of the day, an eternal mindset will make all the difference of whether you quit or you look past it and keep going in faithfulness. To pick yourself up if no one else will and keep marching on.

Those of us who have been discouraged doing the Lord’s work, we know that it’s always been because of people. Because of other peoples grumblings and complaints, about nit picky things, or things being handled in the wrong way, and of course like the Israelites people even lacking trust in God at points. There will always be critics. There will always be frustrations. But learn from the good and the bad of Moses to keep the focus where it should be.

Don’t let another person be the reason you stopped being faithful or doing something for the Kingdom of God. We need to make it known we revere God and His ways as Holy! We need people to step up and lead in the Church. We also need to humbly follow when we aren’t leading. Good advice for working for God: lead, follow, or get out of the way. If I’m needed to step up and play a bigger role then I should prayerfully move forward. If its not my time to lead then I need to be humble enough to follow.

(PPT) Another takeaway from this section is the fact that there is need for humility and accountability among God’s people, and especially leaders of God’s people. At first when you read this you might think “Really? After all Moses did and endured for your people God? One slip up and now he doesn’t get to go into the promised land?” But…anytime God’s word conflicts with my feelings guess who’s wrong - ME. Every time. If God’s word troubles you at times good! And make the decision to be humbled, understand your need to rethink at times what you thought you knew! Even if I can’t figure out “WHY” something is in God’s word that's OK.

My responsibility is to grasp on to what Moses forgot in this instance - That I always need to recognize God and His way as Holy so then I need to conform my ways to Him.

And whenever I don’t I ought to be held accountable. Whenever I’m not being the leader I should be by doing the things I should or saying the things I should then there is a need to humbly accept the rebuke God gives to follow who the real leader is, and change.

Moses was the tool of God not the power, and he needed to get out of the way for God to be seen working. That goes for us too.

(PPT) Hebrews 11:22-29 - Faithful

V.24-26

When Moses understood who God was and that with God is the right place to be, he was willing to endure mistreatment with God’s people in order to accomplish God’s will. Because he knew the end result was eternally more gratifying and noble than the momentary sinful gratifications of anything and anyone away from God.

“reproach of Christ” = enduring through turmoil for the goal of accomplishing God’s will. It’s not meaning being shamed by Christ, it means enduring shame faithfully like Christ did for a great purpose. Moses understood that being on God’s side even though it was shameful to the world was really more noble than anything that could be accomplished here on this earth. By faith, willing to endure the present because of an amazing future.

(PPT) So Moses said no to all he ever knew and said yes for God to show him and lead Him to something better. He didn’t know all God had in store and didn’t understand how great it would be with God, but because he knew God that was enough to act. He understood it would be immensely better with God than any other option.

And perhaps they’d called him crazy for his choices. But it was the right choice despite how it seemed to others. And today people think we’re crazy as Christians for denying ourselves and denying certain pleasures. The biggest challenge we face is instant gratification verses delayed gratification. And as Christians we have to keep the bigger picture in mind, that there is a purpose to it all and that there is something more than the here and now.

The draw of sin is that it is pleasurable. It’s not always that we’re struggling with sin, sometimes we’re enjoying it too much. But that enjoyable sin brings real life struggles. If you want to avoid the struggles of sin and avoid sinning, you’ve got to make the decision for yourself that you hate the result of it more than you like the taste. You have to train your mind and your heart to say no to sin, so that you can say yes to God.

When you come to the fork in the road will you choose comfort or choose Jesus?

V.27-29

Moses heard what God expected of Him, trusted God to take care of the circumstances, and obeyed God’s direction. And as a result, the people of Israel were delivered from captivity in Egypt.

Moses in his walk with God and as a leader was found at times to be fearful, he was frustrated (perhaps frustrating as well), but ultimately he was faithful.

(PPT) The trademark of His faith was his dependence on God that he had to learn fast from the get-go. And he encouraged everyone under his influence to depend on God in the same ways.

Deuteronomy 34, the end of Moses life, gives us insight into how he ended his life here. Deuteronomy 34:7 “Now Moses was 120 years old when he died; his eye was not dim, nor his vigor abated.”

We’re talking about his spiritual view. He wasn’t looking at anything except for God and God’s will. He looked away from the world and looked to God until the very end, that’s how he ended his time on this earth.

Moses didn’t let the things that were seen distract him from God and His will. And so his faith was seen. His invisible Hope in a real God was on display, and is still for you and I to learn from today.

Moses made a few mistakes along the way, even some big ones. But the thing that he did right was choosing to be loyal and faithful to God. That’s what got him over his moments of failure to be as he continued to depend on God and as a result be made righteous.