Moses

Transcript

what i want to talk about tonight is moses

obviously from the screen in front of you and

the problem with moses there is a problem is there is so much information so i literally have cherry picked i've cherry picked different stories different lessons different character traits so forth so on just to do a very broad brush of moses i may do a follow-up i don't know next month what my class is going to be depending on what happens tonight i may do a follow-up i may do something totally different but i just as i was thinking about moses dana and i were talking about this the other day

and i think and and you can you can jump in right now and tell me if i'm wrong on this but i think

from birth to death

there is probably more written about moses and maybe david than anyone else i mean we know about moses from the day he was born to the day he died now david we don't know about his birth but there's a lot infra a lot written about david as well but for 120 years for moses we know a lot now we know

some about his first 40 years

we know really in reality very little about his second 40 years from 40 to 80 but from 80 to 120 there's a lot of information there's no way in the world i'm going to do moses justice tonight but what i really am trying to get at are the lessons that we can learn from moses because moses

moses wasn't a perfect man

you know he just he wasn't neither was david neither am i you know we're just we're not perfect but with moses he's written about in hebrews 11 a man of faith and so with the the bulk of information that's there i just think it it's been good for me any time i've looked at moses and it seems like i can always pull more out of it the other thing is about moses is passover time right now as we speak so it's passover time we read about passover in today's readings in john

you know with moses that's where passover started so i thought okay another reason another good thing and a good time to talk about moses

when i think about moses and his character the first thing i think about are some of the scriptural descriptions of moses it says in exodus 2 that he was beautiful and sort of in connection with that in acts it says he was lovely in the sight of god

the verse i really one of the verses i really like about moses in verse 22 in acts 7 it says he was a man of power in words and deeds so you know he didn't just

preach the word he walked the walk as well so a man of power in words and deeds it says in verse 25 of acts 7 he supposed that his brethren understood that god was granting them deliverance through him

so you know moses made some assumptions in his life

and later he was told yes you are going to your people are going to be delivered through you

and verse 35 at acts 7 says moses is the one whom god sent to be both a ruler and a deliverer so moses was sent

with a purpose

in exodus 11 it says the man moses himself was greatly esteemed in the land of egypt both in the sight of pharaoh's servants and in the sight of his people so you know this isn't just

a servant of god in passing this is a this is a pillar of faith a pillar of in his life to all those who are around him

another verse that i really really like about moses is in numbers 12 it says now the man moses was very humble more than any man who is on the face of the earth

i mean

to put that as your epitaph on your gravestone well first off you wouldn't do it because you're too humble to do it but you know just that thought just that thought more humble than anybody period and then later in number seven or numbers 12 it says he is faithful in all my household with him god says with him i speak mouth to mouth so just some scriptural descriptions of moses

i think it's interesting too

that we have two more

two summaries at least two summaries there's there's more in the old testament but in the new testament we have two summaries of moses's life we've already talked about some of those in acts 7 it talks about moses being raised by pharaoh's daughter and again we're that's why i didn't do a reading because there's just too much to read and we all know the general basic story about moses i believe but he was raised by pharaoh's daughter he kills an egyptian but he was despised by his brethren

he flees to midian after he killed killed someone where he lived for 40 years

he then god appears to moses in a burning bush at mount sinai and then eventually he finally returns to egypt he delivers israel and brings them into the wilderness so you know just a a quick summary in acts 7 i think it's it's telling that stephen in acts 7 takes enough real estate in his speech to describe

moses the other thing is in in hebrews 11 and again we just touched on this briefly a few minutes ago but the the the hall of faith the hall of fame of faith in hebrews 11. you know there's another summary of moses and it says by faith he was hidden for three months they were not afraid of the king's edict by faith when grown up he refused to be called the son of pharaoh's daughter choosing rather to endure ill-treatment while the people of god with the people of god than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin and then says by faith considering the reproach of christ greater riches than the treasures of egypt for he was looking to the reward

by faith he left egypt not fearing the wrath of the king for he endures as seeing him who is unseen

and here we have the passover by faith he kept the passover in the sprinkling of blood so that he who destroyed the firstborn would not touch them and finally in hebrews 11 it says by faith they passed through the red sea as though they were passing through dry land

so we have this summary of moses obviously talked about a lot in exodus and some in leviticus deuteronomy we've got

psalms that moses has talked about we've got the gospels there's references being made to moses but then we have these two pieces in acts 7 and hebrews 11 that just sort of flesh out some of the more details of moses's character so again i think it's to me it's important to realize that again that the depth of description descriptions of moses and say if he's talked about this much there must be some reason

so i want to jump forward to i want to jump forward 80 years to when moses was 80 years old when god calls moses at the burning bush

so

moses grew up in pharaoh's household we just read a few verses about that you know moses was a prince of egypt

but he had to flee in midian and we're going to talk about this later midian he became a shepherd

for 40 years he was wandering admitting as a shepherd now there's other things going on at that time too he met his wife

his father-in-law first obviously but at the end of that second 40 years of his life is when he was called by god

at the burning bush

i wonder i asked myself the question

what would my response be

if i were called

from a burning bush

you know i've had 80 years to understand i mean you know you wonder the the moses the man mighty in words and these deeds humble above all other men on the face of the earth

you wonder where he was at this moment in his thought process

i think we have a little clue to that and this is something when i was doing a class at our bible education center i don't know let's call it 10 years ago now

i i came across this somewhere and i wrote these notes down in my bible and i just i i like it because it unfortunately it reflects me

but what it is is in exodus 3 and 4 it's what i call the excuses of moses

because when god speaks to moses out of the burning bush moses says five different things and god responds he's moses says who am i what shall i say suppose they'll not believe me the one i always think about is when he says i am slow of speech and slow of tongue and then his last excuse as it were as i look at it is he says please send whom whomever else you may send

moses at the burning bush i think was in an uncomfortable place

but he was in a place of growth

and god was calling him in this place of growth

god didn't wait until moses was

his preparation was finished and said okay now you're ready god could see where moses was and see the end from the beginning and say i can see where you're going to moses and you are the man i want and that's why i'm going to call you i'm calling you to lead the children of israel out of egyptian bondage

moses then says i'm

not real sure about this god

the lesson for me is you know as god's people today

do we have a special calling from god you know we're not going to go to a country i don't think and deliver those who are physically in bondage in slavery but we are called to go to a world that's in bondage to sin and to help deliver those people that are in sin

but the question i have for myself when i look in the mirror is do i make excuses too so i wanted to take a look at these five again what i call the excuses of moses first off he says who am i you know

god calls him and moses says am i the right man for the job

god immediately answers

and says i will certainly be with you well you know

if i'm called from the burning bush and i say that to god to the angel to the bush

and i hear an answer back i will certainly be with you

i'm hoping i would say okay

i'm good now you know god promises that he's going to be with moses and it should i would think have been sufficient i would hope it would be sufficient for me you know in romans 8 paul writes if god is for us who can be against us i mean this is where moses is at this moment you know

40 years had passed since he had been in egypt and

we think he he's probably looking at himself

maybe and saying how adequate am i right now

you know am i adequate all i've been doing is i've been out here in the wilderness as a shepherd for all these years you know i haven't been around hordes of people i haven't been standing up as a leader for hundreds thousands however hundreds of thousands of people i've just been out here by myself am i adequate am i adequate

you know we think i think about the apostles who it says in acts 4 that they were uneducated and untrained men

and

moses i think it's

i think i may have this written here somewhere i think it's josephus maybe that said moses

could have been a general in egypt's army which would make sense growing up in pharaoh's household

but yet here he is as a shepherd and here he is saying i'm not adequate god

so god answers him and says no it's okay you don't have to be adequate moses i'm going to be with you

the next one so moses says well okay but then what am i gonna say you know he's saying okay i know god you're gonna be with me but you know what what am i gonna say am i gonna say when they say to me the children of israel say who is this guy who sent you to us what am i supposed to say what if they say why are we going to leave this country that we've come to consider home for over 400 years why

and moses is saying again in a way i'm inadequate i don't know what to say god immediately says to him

thus you shall say here's what you need to say you know god instructs him very clearly what to say and immediately shoots down that reasoning that thought process that excuse in moses's mind

so moses then says well suppose they're not going to believe me you know i can tell them this but what if they don't believe me i mean is is he afraid is moses afraid of failing you know did he already forget that god was going to be with him you know so what does god do he responds and says look i'm going to give you these three convincing proofs a rod which turns into a serpent your own hand which turns into leprosy and this water which is going to turn into blood

that should take care of it don't you think so moses you know that that should have made moses feel a lot better and feel more comfortable feel more adequate and these evidences certainly are similar things that we have as we are called to go out you know we've got evidence of the resurrection of christ we've got the evidence of fulfilled prophecy there's so much in scripture that we have you know do i say well if i go out to to preach somewhere well what if they don't believe me wait a minute god is saying to me here you've got all this evidence i've given this to you so use it and help help there

then the excuse that i always think is as i guess to me i think this is the only excuse but you know when you look at it there's more but moses says well i'm slow of speech and slow of tom he just says i'm not eloquent speaker i'm not a speaker god you know and i've said that before and i think probably most people have said that at some point that well i'm not prepared i'm not eloquent i'm not i i can't

share my thoughts appropriately i heard one person say well i'm not a what was it i'm not an original thinker all i can do is repeat other things it's like well no that's sort of an excuse of moses

you know

god says now not going to deal with that objection because

i know

your ability or your inability and i know you're okay

you know at work a lot for years now when we have i have discussions with some employees my question is always not always my question to some people at times when there's performance issues is are you unwilling or unable

you know moses so far has says has said i'm unable

you know who am i are they going to believe me what if they don't believe me i'm slow speech and slow of tongue he's saying i'm unable

and

god promises again to be with moses and he actually says you know don't worry aaron is going to to help you out here your brother is going to help you out

so think about that unwilling and unable

conversation that i just mentioned for a second because finally moses says please send whomever else you may send

my question is for moses is did he just simply not want to go was he unwilling

were his other excuses just sort of a smokescreen saying i'm really unwilling but i'm going to make up these other reasons why i can't or shouldn't go

this is where it says the anger of the lord was kindled against moses god finally says okay enough is enough we've gone through that unable unwilling thing and now what i'm hearing from you moses is you're unwilling so let's talk about that

so

it's easy it's easy for us

to make excuses we're not talking face to face with god we are in our prayers but god's not in a burning bush there in front of us so it's easier to make these excuses to come up with reasons about why not or why or you know whatever to to come up with our own human reasons and what i always say to do what's right in our own eyes instead of to do what's right for god

you know when we were when we were running the bible education center in champaign-urbana illinois for 10 years

we visited a uh some brethren a brother and sister out of state at one point who had heard about the work we were doing and and had been supportive of us

and they were very intrigued and so we were traveling we stopped by their place we i think just had an afternoon tea or something with them

but they wanted to start a bible education center in their own ecclesia

but what they said was they weren't getting full buy-in they were getting a lot of excuses just like moses made and they said in fact one older sister came to them and said i think having a bible education center is a good idea but it's going to be a lot of work so this is an old very very elderly sister so she said could you wait and tell them until after i'm gone

and they were like oh my no we can't we can't do that but you know and i'm not picking on this older sister because you know running a bible education center is hard it's messy but we're not going there but my my my response to sometimes where things are hard or messy is

is god calling me to do this right now at this time and what is my response am i saying okay

because i think that the what what god tells moses to tell the children of israel had to instill confidence in them over and over and over and over

for 40 years

but they just kept falling back just like we do

but the thing and again i came across this information was preparing a bible class again we'll call it 10 years ago with about moses

and i call it the in exodus 6 where god is

well in exodus five the end of exodus five it says then moses returned to the lord and said lord why have you brought harm to this people why did you ever send me ever since i came to pharaoh to speak in your name he has done harm to these people and you have not rescued your people at all

so in exodus 6 god says say therefore to the sons of israel i am the lord and i will bring you out from under the labors of the egyptians and i will rescue you from their bondage i will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments

then i will take you as my people and i will be your god and then parenthetically and you shall know that i am the lord your god who brought you out from the under the labors of the egyptians and then i will bring you to the land which i swore to give to abraham isaac and jacob and i will give it to you as a possession i am the lord

okay

i read excuse me i read that

god's not saying you know i might

figure a way to get you out from under these burdens i might deliver you maybe sometime down the road somewhere possibly i might redeem you

i don't really want to take you for my people but okay maybe i will someday you know that's not the way it is this is a very black and white i mean sort of like the the in deuteronomy 2 what are you going to choose make your choice life or death what are you going to choose i will i will i will i will god just keeps saying that over and over again and we've got the entirety of scripture for god to say that to us

but do i revert to

the excuses of moses or do i say i'm not going to be like the children of israel and grumble and complain

and we're going to we're going to talk about that in a few minutes i want to sort of take a little aside

and just look at pharaoh for a second our class is really about learning lessons from moses

but i just want to for a moment

take a lesson look at learning lessons from pharaoh you know the with the plagues and pharaoh pharaoh

chose i just talked on deuteronomy about you know choose what are you going to choose pharaoh freely chose his life of resisting god i mean it's who he was you know we talked about a bible class last week david dave 11 talked about identifying as who you were well this is pharaoh's identity his identity is i'm going to resist god

you know you look in exodus 9 10 11 14 here these verses i've got listed you know pharaoh is grieved at the consequences of sin

but not the sin itself you know oh poor me pharaoh says

you know and then the pride the pride that the pharaohs has exodus 10 i mean well throughout these these plagues

like with pharaoh how many warnings do we ignore it's like how many times is god going to have to slap me upside the head to say ray don't you get it because that's what he kept doing with pharaoh that's through moses that's what kept happening and then how quickly they forget how quickly we forget you know again my goodness the children of israel it didn't take long ever ever for them

to have this lesson right in front of their eyes and we're tonight we're not going up on mount sinai we're not going other than the burning bush we're not going to the ten commandments we're not doing all that tonight but

that

you know they moses comes down from the mountain there's the golden calf i mean just all this stuff over and over and over and over again

pharaoh was the same way children of israel were the same way it's human nature we can very easily be the same way but we can't and shouldn't and i try not to use that as my excuse to say

well i'm sinful that's the way it is take it or leave it we should be striving always for for par for perfection

sort of as a thought with that

you know i just wanted to pass through these

three chapters real quickly in exodus 14 15-16 you know you think about the parting of the red sea i mean moses how courageous was moses he didn't know what god was going to do he had to wait for god to reveal his plan

why to see the salvation of the lord you know as i was looking at this in this passage in exodus 14 i think it's getting written somewhere i think it's in verse 13. this is only as far as i can see the second time in scripture that's the word salvation is mentioned it's mentioned first in genesis 49 and so then shortly thereafter here in exodus 14 the word salvation is mentioned and it's mentioned again in exodus 15 in the song of moses but you know i when i first came across that little tidbit i thought well that's interesting we go through almost the entire book of genesis before salvation is even mentioned then we've got the song of moses um that could have been another reading tonight because it's just a beautiful thing

you know my question is was it a spontaneous thing was this just moses's heart and miriam's heart was this just their heart spelling out um just another tidbit here that i've got a note written in my bible that

we read about back in early in exodus about moses and sister but in exodus 15 verse 20 this is the first time miriam is actually mentioned by name so again just an interesting tidbit but then in in exodus 16 we've got manna and quail

it's literally one month later one month after the partying of the red sea

and

what's the problem they they just didn't see the big picture they don't see the big picture they have sort of this collective remembrance oh we remember it like this all those egyptians weren't they so good to us why did you ever do this this and then they actually accused moses of evil intentions i mean what's wrong with this picture what's wrong with these people

and you know you think about moses and aaron

and it's a good thing that the children of israel weren't ruled by the majority you know i've had this conversation with other people in a myriad of different ways but

there is a point for the majority but the majority is not always right so you know the way is narrow the way is narrow

and so good thing that moses said i'm a strong character and i'm going to say no this is the way it's going to be and we're going to talk about that again in just a second here but the one other tip that i have written in my bible in exodus 16 verse 23 this is actually the first time the word sabbath is used you know we certainly have the the concept all the way back in genesis but this is the first time the word sabbath is actually used um so just a point

going back to a second saying you know this they didn't see the big picture they were they had this collective remembrance you know god finally just gets frustrated and god wanted to destroy the israelites he wanted to destroy it says then the lord said to moses i have seen this people and behold they are an obstinate people so now leave me alone that my anger may burn against them and that i may destroy them and i will make of you a great nation then moses pleaded with the lord as god and said lord why does your anger burn against your people whom you have brought out from the land of egypt with great power and with a mighty hand why should the egyptians talk saying with evil motives he brought them out to kill them on the mountains to destroy them from the face of the earth turn from your burning anger and relent of doing harm to your people remember abraham remember isaac in israel your servants to whom you swore by yourself and said to them i will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens and all this land of which i have spoken i will give to your descendants they shall be inherited forever

so the lord relented of the harm which he said he would do to his people what a beautiful position that moses is in to have the relationship that he does with god that he can intercede on behalf of the children of israel directly with god and say god

could you reconsider

and i think there's there's enough information just there to do an entirely different class but i always think back to that you know we god knows the path that we're on god knows where things are going

but god and there's a whole conversation we can have about free will but here moses is saying god please change your mind and moses and god says god relented of the harm which he said he would do to his people

thinking about the attitude of the children of israel in the wilderness for 40 years wandering in the wilderness

think again for about moses for a moment

and especially i think about that middle 40 years of his life when he was in midian as a as a shepherd

and now here he is

his last 40 years of his life he doesn't know that at this point but the last 40 years of his life

right in the middle

right in the middle of the children of israel i mean it had been a pretty i got to believe a pretty peaceful existence for 40 years

and now we're 360 degrees on the other end of that but you know poor moses moses lived for 40 years in the wilderness surrounded by sin

dana and i were having a conversation a few weeks ago and and she said this sentence to me and i said i wrote it down real quickly because i thought yeah

poor moses the strength of character that he had

because god had called him directly

well it's just to me is just amazing to think about

you know i i think about living on the farm that we live on and i think about just sitting there on the deck and looking out back and thinking how peaceful it is

and then i think about

uh going to the chicago marathon and there's 45 000 runners and being right in the middle of 45 000 runners and for 26.2 miles it's crowded crazy crowded just like boston you know not actually boston isn't isn't even as big as the chicago marathon so not as many runners but just as crowded because the streets are narrower but

that to me i look at that dichotomy and i say okay in my life i love that peaceful existence and that's one of the lessons we're going to talk about here in a couple of minutes but moses was called for to something different he was called to be surrounded by sin

and surrounded by grumblers and complainers and sinners of which he was also one but people who couldn't remember what had just happened yesterday when god delivered them when god gave them a tablet the tablets the ten commandments when god did the manna and god gave them the quail and so forth so on over and over and over again

so

i take all that that i've talked about so far tonight

and now i want to talk about some lessons and i

at one point i had like i don't know 50 lessons and i thought okay we can't do 50 lessons that's too much jim would yell at me for for having to go go through go through them too quickly so i i pared it down to some that i think were were um applicable to me and maybe they will be to you too

the first is that god knows me by name

god knew moses by name he called moses at the burning bush when god calls me he knows who i am he chooses me specifically he has chosen me i believe specifically in my life for a reason for a purpose you know there are times where i'll sit back and dana and i will sit and chat and say okay look at the the winding pathway of life and where we are at this minute and how this one little decision this one day

in this five minute segment of life

got me to this place good or bad unfortunately too often bad choices

but choices nonetheless but god knows who we are when he calls us and when god calls us what did moses do he took off his sandals

when god calls us

we should stand still

we should listen

we shouldn't run

we should bow before god

so there's there's a lesson

another lesson is it's not going to be easy it's not going to be easy i mean think about moses confronting pharaoh

you know and we'll call pharaoh the dictator the dictator pharaoh did not give in right away you know farrell let his people suffer through plagues after plague after plague before he finally gave in and then he gave in then he reloaded he gave in and relented finally he's like okay i give in go but then he chased him so you know but it's it's not going to be easy in life it's just not and you know we we always talked about that at the bible education center that life can be messy life can be messy life can be hard i think i've mentioned this in another class because i mentioned it a lot of times over the years when my boys were in high school maybe we took them to um probably before that probably junior high we took them to a conference in indiana just for whatever reason remember that but the conference was called do hard things

do hard things

and i think about that frequently when there's things i don't want to do or things i sh i just say i just i don't want to do it you just do it do hard things because life isn't going to come easy for us you know it comes easier for some than others becomes very difficult for some but we've all got a free will righteous people unrighteous people but still wherever we are we've got a choice and we have to wrestle in our own mind to do the right thing

the next lesson is god isn't small

you know i remember goodness how many years ago was it 15 years ago maybe we went to bozeman bible camp in montana

and after that we actually went out to kept on going to

glacier national park

when you're in montana and you look out at the sky

it's big

thus montana's state motto is i think big sky country big sky something like that the big sky state thanks guys to thank you jim i knew i was somewhere in the right ballpark i think about that i think about texas too you know texas is they're just texans are just proud of the size of their state right

you know i think sometimes in my little room and my little den and my little

pickup truck or you know wherever my little life sometimes we tend to shrink god down we can but god

you know you i just remember driving through montana and saying look at this our god is an awesome god just an awesome god god is not small god is big let's not put him in a box let's not make god a small minded person god is big that's just just a lesson one that i sort of touched on a few minutes ago and want to elaborate a little bit is getting alone with god

you know frequently throughout moses's life he got alone with god to commune with him and pray it talks about we read about those verses about um is what he says spoke of the mouth to mouth i've got a verse here in a few minutes somewhere talking about seeing god face to face but you know

there's a place for group

communal worship and there's a place for being alone with god just being alone with god

i think i remember was it last week i think yeah as last week in bible class where steve talked about his happy place on his bike

you know my happy place is out running you know that's that's i don't know if you can see that's my that's my shirt tonight it says run i'd love to run i'm

i identify as a runner you know was carrying on with last week's conversation but that's my happy place i rarely

listen to music i just don't listen to anything i just think i think

and pray

and think some more but it's it's it's a time to just get alone you know if you've ever been to central illinois out in the corn in the bean fields there's plenty of places to be alone with god you know in illinois unlike the boston area in illinois

everything is set up in one mile grids so you know when you get to a crossroads you've run a mile another crossroads is another mile another crossroads is another mile you turn right and go a mile you know there's a four mile around as a section but

when i'm running many times it's a mile of corn a mile of soybeans another mile of soybeans a mile of corn and it doesn't change much but god is always there so spend time somehow

you're probably not going to go out writing like steve too much you're probably not going to go out running like me but everybody in one way or the other can spend time to get along with god

another lesson is we have to believe we just have to believe you know moses tried to excuse his way out of god's calling calling him in his life

and god just says no moses i'm not having it you know

god's not going to abandon us in our calling either he didn't abandon moses

you know i've asked the question many times over the years do we believe in god

or do we believe god

there's a difference i say if you go out there to many people they're gonna say yep i believe in god

but then the deeper question is do you believe god do you believe what he is saying to us moses did you believe god

moses you must have because you went out and led the children of israel through the wilderness

all right just to give you a time check we are at 8 15 so i don't know how much time you want to leave for questions but uh there we are we're coming up to the end here so thank you jim i appreciate that um i think we've got four more quick lessons four or five more quick lessons the this lesson is to get help you know moses wasn't just a prophet he was a leader moses was a lawmaker moses is a military commander moses is a judge moses was a spiritual leader and just much much more moses was very versatile multi-talented multi-faceted person

but it became overwhelming

and so his father-in-law jethro said you know what moses you need to get some help

we can't do it alone we need help in our lives

you know it's it's just i know people i know people that just won't ask for help you know it's almost like they're a martyr i'm gonna do this on my own i'm not going to bother you that's you know that's the mindset well i don't want to bother you i'm just going to do it alone

if we're going to try to learn a lesson and be like moses and try and be humble we sometimes need to say we can't do it alone we need to get help

we need to remember the lesson that god was with moses and he will always be with us you know god led his people god fought for his people god was always with his people the pillar of fire by night the cloud by day god was with his people god is always with us so no matter where we are whether i'm out on a run whether i'm driving to work whether i'm sitting at my office whether i'm feeding my chickens you know whatever it is whatever i'm doing god is with us god was with moses

i've talked about this a number of times tonight about moses being humble and

the lesson is god uses the humble not the proud moses growing up in pharaoh's household you know if that were me what i have said puffed out my chest and said i am a member of pharaoh's household i can do whatever i want to do

and would that have ruled my life

you know

i just think about the the humility of moses the beginning of his life when he was let down into the into the nile you know his parents didn't know

that this moses was going to change the course of history

you know he he enjoyed

his life his benefits of being part of this royal family the same family that ruled the world's greatest empire at that time

you know

it said he was

said he was good looking you know natural charisma i mean this is sort of who moses was

but as i've always said too it's always about the heart it's always about the heart you know moses could have been a leader of the egyptians could have been a leader of the people and yet for

the second 40 years of his life instead of speaking to the egyptians he was speaking to sheep

you know different little different audience as a shepherd that lowly job you know genesis 46 it talks about the job of the shepherd when when um joseph's brothers came there to see to to to talk to pharaoh and joseph he talks about the egyptians despising the lowly job of being a shepherd but this is who moses became i think that's what helped him as days turn into weeks into months and into years that i think moses's confidence in himself

started to fade away

and little by little

that proud and that mighty moses who he who was there earlier in his life became a very humble and a very meek shepherd

god's going to fight our battles for us

and again i just go back to the the crossing of the red sea the parting of the red sea you know this was this is

dramatic it doesn't even begin to explain what this would have looked like could have looked like

but again it wasn't moses

it wasn't moses god will fight our battles for us

you know we we have on our fridge at home let go and let god i mean we've all heard that and sometimes it can be sort of a trite phrase but i think it really just let god take care of it you know let god take care of it because he will he promises he will

i'm going to skip over that next one and then go to the last last two

is this one you know

the lesson is chew choose the treasures of heaven rather than the treasures of this world moses could have easily chosen the treasures of the egyptians

he could have had all the riches he could ever wish for he could have had the most comfortable life that anybody would dream of

but

he said no not gonna do it it says in hebrews 11 it was faith that made moses when he had grown up refused to be called the son of the king's daughter he preferred to suffer with god's people rather than to enjoy sin for a little while he reckoned that to suffer scorn for the messiah was worth far more than all the treasures of egypt for he kept his eyes on the future award it was faith that made moses leave egypt without being afraid of the king's anger so

we need to set our eyes toward the kingdom we need to set our eyes toward jerusalem we need to set our eyes to the treasures that god has stored up for us in heaven just like moses said you know what i'm not going to focus on these treasures in egypt i'm going to focus on something much bigger and much more long-lasting

the last lesson that i have is

developing a personal relationship with god

this is what moses did exodus 33 it says so the lord spoke to moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend

like a lot of other faithful men and women of scripture moses had a very close relationship with god very close relationship

you know it's it's going to be impossible in our life to be faithful to god if we don't have that close relationship with god

you know it has to start there it has to start there

it says in deuteronomy 34 sort of a retelling but just a little bit different in deuteronomy 34 it says but since then there has not arisen in israel in israel a prophet like moses whom the lord knew face to face

so again imagine these same words used to describe ourselves i would love to have that said about me it would it would be incredible it would be humbling

and moses as a lesson to us remained humble that made him even closer to god

so this is a very quick snapshot a very quick overview tonight of the life of moses and

god wants us to be close to him god wants us to put our trust completely in him god uses moses as a template for our lives to say ups and downs good and bad choices good choices bad choices but a life of faith that that thread is there from day one

through his family

all the way to the end even though there were some some issues there which again that's a whole other whole other subject we're not going to talk about but still no matter what happened to moses life no matter the mistakes he made he is still

mentioned in hebrews 11 as one of the faithful so that is my goal is to be of the character of moses