July 26, 2020 Sermon

Introduction

Beach ball idea

Learning from Moses

Joshua experienced the challenge of following a giant.

Moses grew up in the house of Pharaoh.

Moses was in exile away from Egypt for many years and then returned representing God.

Moses faced down the leaders of one of the greatest countries on earth (with God’s power) and won.

Moses led a nation of millions and was essentially the writer of a country’s laws and traditions.

How do you follow this up?

Joshua had the blessing of knowing and learning from Moses for over 40 years. That’s an incredible amount of time and it’s just right for learning some priceless truths.

Caught Truths

We act like our parents act imitating so much about them. We aren’t robots simply repeating everything they taught us. Whether we like it or not we have caught a world of values from our parents because we spend so much time with them.

They say more is caught than taught.

Think about it.

When you go to work there are the rules that are explained to you and then there are the different ways the rules are applied.

When you go go school you learn from what your teachers are trying to teach you and you learn from the kind of people they are.

At home, our children see us talking to them about how they should act, then they watch us living.

For example I tell the girls to clean up any outside the tub water after they bathe. Friday, Christy found some water I left outside the tub after my shower. She quickly pointed out how unfair that was. And she was right, if I make a big deal out of cleaning up with the girls, then I need to walk my walk.

Today I want to take a look at a few experiences Joshua had with Moses and what they might have taught him.

The Battle of Amalek

Exodus 17:9–14 ESV

9 So Moses said to Joshua, “Choose for us men, and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.” 10 So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. 11 Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. 12 But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. 13 And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword. 14 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.”

God is totally sufficient but He chooses to use people.

Can you imagine what it would have been like for Joshua?

On one hand Joshua knew first hand how hard the battle was. He was fighting in the battle while Moses was on the hill. Joshua knew the lives lost and the blood shed for this victory. But Joshua also had to see how the battle changed back and forth with the raising and lowering of Moses’ hands. Joshua knew God was powerful enough to do some awesome things. And Joshua knew that God worked through people.

There was no magic in Moses’ hands. Read every bit of the Bible you can find that talks about Moses. He didn’t have magical powers. God on the other hand is supernatural He created the laws of nature and He can defy them without our help.

And yet God chose to work through the actions of Moses to give a victory to the nation of Israel.

God doesn’t need you but He loves to work through you.

God doesn’t need you to share the Gospel message to your family but entire extended families have been saved by the brave words of a single person.

God doesn’t need you to let that lonely person at work know they are loved, but your words of love might be what God uses to change their whole life.

God doesn’t need you to earn money to provide for your family but He loves to bless and work through our work to provide for us.

Pay attention to see how God wants to use you today.

I want you to notice that God doesn’t tell Moses to hold up his hands in order to win the battle. I imagine an almost funny situation where Moses is watching the battle and holds his staff up to cheer them on. He notices that when he holds his staff up they win, and when he brings the hand and staff down, they loose.

Can you imagine…staff up, staff down, staff up, staff down, staff half up, staff half down. Reverse, fake. Etc. Here’s my point Moses had to pay attention to what God commanded and how God was working. As he paid attention, Moses saw God working and acted on what God was doing.

I think God wants us to pay attention today to how He is working in us and do more of that.

Ask a friend what he or she sees as a strength of yours that God is working through. Lean into and do more with that strength.

Journal and keep track of ways you are able to encourage others or ways you see God working through you.

God likes to work disproportionately through our work as well. Moses just lifted his hands and God won a battle for him! Sometimes God is just asking us to take a step of obedience for Him to really unleash his blessing through us.

God is glorious!

Exodus 24:13–18 ESV

13 So Moses rose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God. 14 And he said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we return to you. And behold, Aaron and Hur are with you. Whoever has a dispute, let him go to them.” 15 Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. 16 The glory of the Lord dwelt on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. 17 Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. 18 Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

Can you imagine the mountaintop experience that would have been for Joshua? (Pun intended) Moses was the one talking to God but Joshua stood there and watched it happen. He saw Moses enter what looked like a constantly raging fire and stay there for 40 days! Most of us these days have an attention span measured in minutes and hours.....Joshua watched and waited for days!

Joshua experienced the awesome power of God up close! Can you imagine the respect for God that gave Him?

I remember years ago visiting a site called the MacTesh Ramon in Israel. This was an erosion crater miles across and 1,642 feet deep. I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon before but I can only imagine this vast cavern compares a little. It shows you how small we really are in comparison to only a part of God’s creation. When we experience these grand bits of God’s creation we are reminded how truly great He is.

God wants us to wait and look for Him to show up.

Exodus 33:11 ESV

11 Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his assistant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.

This is totally another moment where I’d really like to be a fly on the wall. Moses goes into the prayer tent with Joshua. God speaks plainly with Moses as if people were talking friend to friend.

Hint, this doesn’t happen normally in the Bible.

Moses would leave the tent to go out and do the work of leading the camp. Joshua would stay behind waiting to hear if God would speak.

Are we willing to wait to hear from God?

Are we willing to put our phones and music away and go for a walk and talk with God about our lives?

Are we willing to create space to understand and spend time with the God who made us?

People can easily and often turn from God.

Exodus 32:15–18 ESV

15 Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written. 16 The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. 17 When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.” 18 But he said, “It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear.”

I don’t know if you remember the story. The people weren’t singing praise and worship songs to God. They were singing their praise and worship to the idol they just made. They were worshipping an object because they were impatient and couldn’t (They choose not to) wait any longer on God.

It’s important to keep God’s purposes as the main thing in our focus.

God wanted to appoint some men to help Moses with leading. Joshua saw the importance of authority and people seeing that it was Moses passing on the authority.

Numbers 11:16–17 ESV

16 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Gather for me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them, and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you. 17 And I will come down and talk with you there. And I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it yourself alone.

Numbers 11:24–26 ESV

24 So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord. And he gathered seventy men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tent. 25 Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. And as soon as the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied. But they did not continue doing it. 26 Now two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the Spirit rested on them. They were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp.

Two men failed to come out and yet they started prophesying in the camp. This means they started speaking on God’s behalf to the people in the camp.

Joshuas was very worried about this. He was jealous for Moses’ sake. He knew that these men doing what they were doing in the camp would detract from the authority of Moses.

Numbers 11:28–29 ESV

28 And Joshua the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth, said, “My lord Moses, stop them.” 29 But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!”

Moses saw this but his focus was far more on the work and power of God over anything that would reflect good or bad on Himself.

Service

We serve the same God of Moses and Joshua.

Today God is still using people to accomplish His incredible purposes! He is still answering prayers. He is still saving and working in human lives for good.

We serve and are fickle people like Joshua, Moses and Israel.

Opening Up Joshua The People Whom We Serve

The grace of God is the only hope for pastors with straying hearts who seek to minister to saints with straying hearts.

Joshua, Moses, and all Israel were fickle people. One moment they would trust and follow God with all their energy. The next moment they would moan and complain that God hadn’t done exactly what they’d wanted.

Yet God patiently and consistently works through fickle people for His Glory.

We serve best with a heart lightened by humility.

Philippians 1:18 ESV

18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice,

The Christian journey is hard. Life is fully of aches, pains and other problems. We don’t need to the burden of envy in our lives. God calls us to serve Him right here and now.

He doesn’t call us to serve Him in the job our friend has.

He doesn’t call us to serve Him with the gifts someone else in the church has.

He doesn’t call us to serve him by making sure we can control everything.

God calls us with peace to walk with Jesus and follow Him in humility and freedom.

1 Peter 5:5–7 ESV

5 Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.