Victory by Humble Means

Exodus Series  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented
0 ratings
· 27 views
Notes
Transcript

Introduction

Esau

Do you remember the story of Jacob and Esau? Here is a quick summary of it:
Isaac and Rebekah had twin sons: Jacob and Esau
Esau was a scruffy, strong, daddy’s boy, manly son
Jacob was soft, weak, momma’s boy, not-so manly son
Isaac was old, lost his vision and was going to pass soon
Jacob tricked Esau into giving him Esau’s birth-rite, as the firstborn
Rebekah, who preferred Jacob, told him to deceive her husband, his father, into thinking he was Isaac, and get the firstborn son’s blessing from him
Jacob succeeded in robbing Esau of everything, and was promptly sent away by his mother out of fear of Esau
Many years later, Jacob and Esau unite and Esau seems to have forgiven Jacob
Really is a beautiful story. Jacob, the deceiver, robs his brother, tricks his dad, and in the end he is forgiven. But there is a little more to the story that brings us to today’s passage.
After Jacob and Esau’s meeting, we see something weird happen:

12 Then Esau said, “Let’s move on, and I’ll go ahead of you.”

13 Jacob replied, “My lord knows that the children are weak, and I have nursing flocks and herds. If they are driven hard for one day, the whole herd will die. 14 Let my lord go ahead of his servant. I will continue on slowly, at a pace suited to the livestock and the children, until I come to my lord at Seir.”

15 Esau said, “Let me leave some of my people with you.”

But he replied, “Why do that? Please indulge me, my lord.”

16 That day Esau started on his way back to Seir, 17 but Jacob went to Succoth. He built a house for himself and shelters for his livestock; that is why the place was called Succoth.

After Esau seemed to have forgiven his brother, he tries to continue on with Jacob, but Jacob acts weird. He tells Esau to go ahead of him and he’ll follow behind slowly to Seir, Esau’s home. Esau tries to be gracious again and offers to leave his people with Jacob, but Jacob rejects this offer. Then Esau goes ahead to Seir, but Jacob turns and goes to Succoth.
Jacob and Esau were supposed to say together but Jacob ends up running off. And so, Esau just goes back to Seir, which would become the hill country of Edom.
Now, you’re probably wondering: “What does this have to do with Israel walking in the wilderness and their grumbling?” Here is the connection.
Genesis 36 is Esau’s genealogy, and there are many in it. Esau was still blessed to grow into a nation, but Esau mixed with pagan cultures. His family becomes a nation and the nation of Esau (Edom) was a wicked nation. And look what we see in within his genealogy:

12 Timna, a concubine of Esau’s son Eliphaz,

bore Amalek to Eliphaz.

These are the sons of Esau’s wife Adah.

15 These are the chiefs among Esau’s sons:

the sons of Eliphaz, Esau’s firstborn:

chief Teman, chief Omar, chief Zepho, chief Kenaz,

16 chief Korah, chief Gatam, and chief Amalek.

These are the chiefs descended from Eliphaz

in the land of Edom.

Set Up

The name that matters today is Amalek. Think about being a nation as one of Esau’s grandsons who heard of what happened between Jacob and Esau—you would be angry. Esau was willing to forgive, or at least act decent, but his people were not, even all these years later.
In today’s passage, the Amalekites attack the slave nation Israel.
PRAY AND READ

8 At Rephidim, Amalek, came and fought against Israel. 9 Moses said to Joshua, “Select some men for us and go fight against Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the hilltop with God’s staff in my hand.”

10 Joshua did as Moses had told him, and fought against Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. 11 While Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, but whenever he put his hand down, Amalek prevailed. 12 When Moses’s hands grew heavy, they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat down on it. Then Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other so that his hands remained steady until the sun went down. 13 So Joshua defeated Amalek and his army with the sword.

14 The LORD then said to Moses, “Write this down on a scroll as a reminder and recite it to

The Battle v.8

War

We are not told their numbers. We are not told their strength. We are only told what they did. They fought against Israel.
War is a consequence of sin in the world. If Adam and Eve had never sinned, if we had never sinned, then we wouldn’t fight each other. We’d be in Eden living in unity. But Eden is not here anymore. And so, there is war.
Men and women take one another’s lives so that their own lives are not taken. It really is a disgusting thing, but now it is necessary. Sad, cruel, crooked, but necessary. There is such thing as just war, even in a sinful world. This passage’s battle is a just one, at least in the Israelites’ defense. Surely not in the Amalekites’.
This battle was especially important as it was Israel’s first battle. Their escape from Egypt as a nation consisted of almost no actual fighting on Israel’s part. The Lord did everything; Israel just walked and complained.
But this battle is their first as a nation. And, while the Lord would help them, He would not do it all for them. Rather, He had them defend themselves.

Spiritual War

War seems especially foreign for us today. We hear news of wars in other countries, but we haven’t lived in one. We haven’t had to fight for our own lives. While I cannot guarantee whether or not you’ll ever fight in a physical battle, I can guarantee you are fighting in a spiritual one everyday.

11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For

See what Paul says? He says armor up because we are battling against cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens. This is especially interesting considering who he was talking to. The Ephesians were facing real persecution and Paul doesn’t say “Take up an actual sword and fight back,” He says

17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit—which is the word of God.

This sword cuts through bone and marrow: God’s Word. I don’t want you to be unaware, students, of the war you are in right now. There are spiritual forces working against you, prodding you away from your Creator; instilling in you a spite for your Savior; feeding you doubts of your Lord and His Word.
You must take up arms against these. Just as Israel will battle today, sustained by their God through their leader’s strength, so must we battle, sustained by our God, through the working of the Spirit.

Moses’s Part v.9-11

The Fighters

Moses instructs Joshua to pick men to fight. Joshua would be and now is Israel’s wartime General. He would eventually replace Moses, but for now he fought and led in fighting.

10 Joshua did as Moses had told him, and fought against Amalek

We will see Joshua over and over act in courage and bravery as he fought for the sake of his people and his God.

The Leader

Moses’s job in this battle seems very strange to us. Let’s look what it says:

11 While Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, but whenever he put his hand down, Amalek prevailed.

God made Moses the determinant of whether Israel was winning or losing. With the staff in the air, they would be winning against Amalek. With the staff lowered, they would begin losing. It is really easy to kind of chuckle at this story. “So Moses just stood on the hill with his hands up while is people fought?” But we need to think less cynically. There are many things we can learn and observe from this. First, regarding Moses.

Moses was Pretty Old

This seems like a funny point, but it is serious. Many of us couldn’t hold up a staff above our head for 6-10 hours. Moses was an old man. This was difficult for him.

Moses Was Watching His People Die

Placed on a hill with a view of the battle, Moses had to watch his men out there dying and taking lives. This is a lot to watch. This would take a toll on Moses. I am sure he wanted to just down there and start helping his men, but this wasn’t his job.

Moses Was Totally Dependent

Keeping the last point in mind, Moses had to be helpless and dependent. Consider his posture: Hands up in the air. He was vulnerable too! This is the same Moses that saw his Hebrew brothers being severely oppressed and killed a man to help.
Despite Moses’s wisdom and trust in God, I am sure his flesh still wanted to go jump back in and help. But his job was to stand there with the staff in the air.

Moses Trusted God

He didn’t run down and try to fight because he trusted God. Some say he was praying while he stood on the hill, even. Either way, Moses seems to have known that as long as his hands were in the air, and the staff of God was in the air, his people would be winning. Moses kind of explains this later after their victory:

16 He said, “Indeed, my hand is lifted up toward the LORD’s throne.

It was this fact that Moses’s hands were lifted up towards God’s throne that led to their victory. This takes immense trust in God! Even so, Moses stood strong, as long as he could.
Now regarding God.

God Works Through Humble Means

We, as humans, tend to think very pridefully about most things. But God does not. God is constantly working through the most humble ways. Here he used a very old man on a hill holding up a staff to win a battle for this nation.
God still works this way. It is not through your acts of pride and self-centeredness that God works, but through very humble means. You snapping back at your friend is not going to cause them to grow. You speaking condescendingly to your teacher is not going to help her listen to you. You bucking up at your boss is not going to help your case. Instead, if you stay, as Christ, gentle and lowly in your actions and responses, God will work through you.
As foolish as Moses looked, if his hands fell, his people died and they lost. He had to do this for their survival.

Parallel to the Cross

We shouldn’t disregard Moses’s work here in standing on the hill with his staff raised, leading to their victory. As strange as it seems to us, it really shouldn’t be. There are several other times where God used something seemingly insignificant and considered nothing to be something and to put to shame that which is something.
The best example is Christ. Have you every thought about this: our Messiah, our Savior, He came as a baby boy. He lived a lowly life in a family of nobodies in a ghetto town. When He finally started His ministry, He didn’t go around as a King and destroy the Roman Empire, or even the Jewish Pharisees. Instead, our Savior saved us by being humiliated, tortured, mocked, beaten, crucified, and killed.
Similarly, Jesus was lifted up on a hill with two men by His sides, arms raised towards Heaven, and had Jesus not have done this. Had He have gotten off of the cross. Had He of summon 12 legions of angels to wipe these wicked men out, then we would have never of been saved.
Just as Israel’s victory required Moses to stand as he did, so does our victory require Jesus to be crucified. Don’t disregard the insignificant, God works through that.

Bearing Moses’s Burden v.12

Moses’s Strength

Now, Moses is not Jesus. He still was weak physically, even as he stood as his God would later on this hill. Verse 12 tells us

12 When Moses’s hands grew heavy, they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat down on it. Then Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other so that his hands remained steady until the sun went down.

He was still a man, and an old man at that. He could not do this on his own. But imagine this. Imagine Aaron and Hur saw Moses struggling and came to help, but Moses said “Leave me alone, this is my burden to carry!” If Moses did this, they would have all died. His pride would have wiped Israel out. Moses needed his brothers’ help. He needed them.
Needing someone’s help is not weak. In fact, asking for help (accountability, counsel, wisdom) requires much strength. Don’t be that guy that is unable to ask for help. If that is you, you must humble yourself. Be like Moses. Even Jesus, needed help carrying the cross!

LOTR Frodo and Sam

In the fantastic book series, “The Lord of the Rings,” we see this happen with Frodo and Sam. Frodo was tasked to bear the ring, and the anguish that came with it. It did quite a number on him. Sam desired to relieve his master Frodo of this burden, but Frodo would tell him “No” because he felt this was his task alone. Sam displays “bearing one another’s burdens” all throughout the book, but especially at the end. As they are climbing Mount Doom to destroy the Ring, Frodo is completely without strength. Really they both are. They have no energy. They have had barely any food or water. They have nothing left in them. Frodo gives up and collapses. What will happen? Sam picks up Frodo, bearing him and his burdens, and climbs the mountain with Frodo.

Bearing One Another’s Burdens

What we see of Aaron and Hur, what we see of Sam and Frodo, we must be like this too. Paul even commands it!

Brothers and sisters, if someone is overtaken in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual, restore such a person with a gentle spirit,, watching out for yourselves so that you also won’t be tempted. 2 Carry one another’s burdens; in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if anyone considers himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 Let each person examine his own work, and then he can take pride in himself alone, and not compare himself with someone else. 5 For each person will have to carry his own load.

Are you one who is willing to make your life a complete mess in order to bear another’s burdens? If you see your brother or sister in Christ struggling; you can almost see the burden on their back crushing them into oblivion. Do you go to them and put some of it on you? Are you willing to do that? You must be, for the sake of the church.

Victory Over Amalek v.13-16

Israel’s First Victory

After all that occured, finally Israel defeated Amalek. The Lord then says,

“Write this down on a scroll as a reminder and recite it to

The Lord then speaks words of reassurance to Joshua, their military leader. This would be a great encouragement to him. The Lord assures Joshua that He is going to completely decimate the people of Amalek. They will not live on any more.
After Joshua has seen his friends dying by Amalek’s hand, this would be reassuring information.

Our Victory

Look what Charles Spurgeon says of this:
Exodus—Saved for God's Glory It’s a Spiritual Battle

The children of Israel were not under the power of Amalek—they were free men; and so we are not under the power of sin any longer. The yoke of sin has been broken by God’s grace from off our necks, and now we have to fight not as slaves against a master, but as freemen against a foe. Moses never said to the children of Israel while they were in Egypt, “Go, fight with Pharaoh.” Not at all; it is God’s work to bring us out of Egypt and make us his people, but when we are delivered from bondage, although it is God’s work to help us, we must be active in our cause. Now that we are alive from the dead we must wrestle with principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness if we are to overcome.

This is such a great description of our spiritual warfare today. God has already won the war. He killed death and freed us from all bondage, but there are still battles to be fought. These battles, the Lord will strengthen us in, but we must fight.

The Lord is Our Banner

Finally, Moses commemorates their win by building an altar and naming it “Yahweh-nissi.” This means “The Lord is Our Banner.”
Here is where I want to land. Israel knew now more than ever that their Lord, who secured them another victory, was their banner. The fact that they beat Amalek is a great testiment to this truth. Yahweh was their banner. But what is yours?
A banner is representative of who we are. Banner’s used to have family crests on them to show who they were. But now, our banner must only be Christ.
What is it that makes up who you are? What is it that you are made up of? What fills your conversations? What is your passion? Where does your zeal lie? I pray that Christ is your banner. I pray He is your all, just as He was for Moses.
Related Media
See more
Related Sermons
See more
Earn an accredited degree from Redemption Seminary with Logos.
Copyright 2026 LogosFeatures|Pricing|Privacy|Terms of Use|Support