How A Faithful Leader Deals With Faithless Followers
Sermon
Let's Get Committed
First Lesson Sermons For Sundays After Pentecost
The ranchers of the 1800s would round up thousands of wild horses to tame as good riding animals for their cowboys and for cattle drives. One method to "break" the horses of their wildness was to harness one to a little burro. The odd pair were loosed together into the desert range. The wild horses hated it and would leave bucking, snorting, and dragging the burro over the desert rocks. Days passed and the wild horse did everything to break the bonds that held him. The burro was the target of his rebellion. As the days passed, the horse became exhausted trying to be free, while the quiet, patient, slow, unobtrusive little burro became the leader.
God harnessed the verbally handicapped, shy, and non-assuming Moses with a company of impatient, immature, and volatile people called the Hebrews. He led them out of Egyptian bondage into the dwellings on the heights of Sinai. It is there that Moses and the people witnessed God's revelation, law giving, the command for a tabernacle for the Great "I Am," and established a priestly tradition.
As Moses and God conversed on Mount Sinai the people became despondent, impatient, and fearful that their leader had died or abandoned them. They needed something solid, something visible, to calm their fears of the future. Their restlessness led them to demand of Aaron, second in command, for gods to lead them. A golden calf was crafted to do just that. They substituted the false for the real. The faithlessness of the people came in the moments of delay.
Moses listened as God delivered monumental directions for the lives of the people. It was a lengthy dissertation from God to Moses spanning several days, preventing Moses from coming down from the mountain. In the Schocken Bible, Everett Fox translates the tardiness of Moses as "shamefully-late." Can you imagine the conversations: "Where is Moses?" "What's he doing up there all this time?" "I wonder if he died up there?" "He doesn't care about us! If he did, he would be down here leading us into the Promised Land!"
Delay ... how we hate it. Have you ever become impatient waiting for the pastor or the Board to make a decision? Have you ever become impatient with God to give you direction? Sometimes we feel God is "shamefully late" causing us anguish, consternation, discomfort, and embarrassment.
The truth is God is always on time. His time table is not ours. F. B. Meyer wrote, "If God told you on the front end how long you would wait to find the fulfillment of your desire or pleasure or dream, you'd lose heart. You'd grow weary in well doing. So would I. But he doesn't. He just says, 'Wait. I keep my Word. I'm in no hurry. In the process of time I'm developing you to be ready for the promise.' "1
Patience brings out the best of each soul. Promises from God are always on time. Ambition is consecrated to God. Time and talent and treasure are used for the will of God. Immortality is given to those who wait upon the Lord. Earnestness of purpose commands the respect of humankind. Nearness to God stops our wandering from Him, centering on Christ sheds light on our daily journey. Efficiency is called out of each person in critical emergencies of life. Don't worry about God's delay -- worry about your own delay before God!
The faithlessness of the people comes in the moments of distraction. The people became impatient with Moses and his God. They needed something that would distract them from their boredom and idleness. It became painfully obvious to them that Moses was probably dead in the mountains or he would have hurried down to lead them. If Moses was dead so was his God. How quickly they had forgotten the awesome demonstration of God's power -- Moses relating the "burning bush" encounter, the ten plagues, the rescue from Egyptian slavery, the deliverance at the Sea, the revelation at Sinai of the Ten Commandments.
Their false assumption leads them to distraction from God's desires to their own desires. This desertion from God occurs on the very site where God initiates His covenant with the people. There was a fearfulness on the part of the people toward getting too close to the divine Holy God of the universe. With Moses' delay in coming down the fear or reverence for the "Almightiness" of God subsides. The people are already tired of an "invisible" God and demand that Aaron give them a god they can see, feel, and touch. They break God's second command of not making a representation of him to worship. How can one make a visible image of an invisible spirit anyway? The people tried fashioning a golden calf -- a counterpart to the Canaanite Baal god in the form of a bull -- saying, "This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the Land of Egypt." God's love had to be crushed in that moment of audacity! He had led them, not some object made by their sinful hands.
When we take our eyes off the living God we become distracted from the truth:
1. the truth of the sovereignty of God;
2. the truth of the word of God;
3. the truth of communication with the Living God;
4. the truth of moral and ethical sensitivity;
5. the truth of holy living;
6. the truth of character and value;
7. the truth of God's purpose in our lives;
8. the truth of salvation.
What distracts from God cannot be tolerated. Jenny Lind had a successful career as an operatic soloist. With her fame arrived wealth. At the height of her fame and wealth she left the stage and never returned. People speculated as to the reason she left the stage and, for her part, seemed content to live the rest of her life in the privacy of her home.
One warm day towards evening she was sitting by the seaside with her Bible on her knees reading. A friend stopped by and caught her reading the Bible as the gentle breeze blew and the glorious glow of sunset was unfolding. The friend quizzed her as to why she abandoned the stage at the height of her success. Her answer was classic: "When every day it made me think less of this (laying a finger on her Bible) and nothing at all of that (pointing to the sunset), what else could I do?"
Our world is so distracted by "things" and may never understand a person's decision to follow God's way. But then, God cannot understand a decision for the pursuit of the world's offering.2
The faithlessness of the people comes in moments of indifference. The people had become indifferent to their God and to their fellow Israelites. All they could think about was their selfish motives, ambitions, and circumstances.
Malcolm Muggeridge commented on today's society when he wrote, "The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for, and deserted by everybody. The greatest evil is the lack of love and charity, the terrible indifference toward's one's neighbor who lives at the roadside assaulted by exploitation, corruption, poverty, and disease."3
An individual's indifference to others can ultimately contribute to that person's social, physical, or spiritual downfall. Whom can we rescue? Whom can we save?
Contrasted to Israel's faithlessness is the faith of Moses. The characterization of Moses' faith demonstrates his firm belief in God through a variety of acts. Moses' faith is demonstrated through his intercession with God on the people's behalf.
The people rebelled against God, ultimately. Their foreplay of creating the god of the golden calf was preceded by sexual orgies which accompanied fertility rites. Their apostasy led them to actions of irresponsible immortality. This new millennium's application to the text becomes apparent -- faithlessness to Jehovah God leads to a diminishing of moral sensitivity.
God's people must rally and intercede for a world steeped in its own lust and moral decay. A call for many Moseses who know how to pray intercessory prayers on the world's behalf is desperately needed.
A. A. Wilson wrote in the December 25, 1975, Pentecostal Evangel Magazine, "God may pass by our elaborate programs and outstanding talents, but he will never pass by the prostrate form of an intercessor."
What must the Christian intercede for today? The answer is for the salvation of the lost, the healing of the sick, the hope of the hopeless, the action of the inactive, the power of the powerless, the will of God, and the Kingdom of the King.
Moses' love is demonstrated through his compassion and concern. Moses saw the Israelites' pitiful spiritual illness and wanted to help them. There was a yearning in his heart that they be spared -- even in their foolish state of mind and heart. Moses genuinely was touched by their lack of spiritual understanding and attempted to do something about it.
The nightly news showed the shocking pictures of Buddhist priests setting themselves on fire in the market squares in the 1960s, burning their images into my youthful mind. For them it was a demonstration of offering the body for the salvation of their spirit. Christ asks us to sacrifice ourselves not in death but in life. We pour ourselves -- heart, soul, body, mind, and spirit -- into his cause because of our love for him. We cannot work our way to heaven. Compassion, meaning love for others, comes because of our love for God. The practical side of mercy helps us to admit our need of God; give people a listening ear; take time and give it away to someone else; feed the hungry; give blood; clothe the naked; shelter the homeless; minister to the prisoners of life.
Who today needs to be shown mercy by you? Is it a friend, a family member, a stranger on the streets -- who?
Moses' faithfulness included a show of character. Character comes with acceptance of responsibility. Taking full responsibility for our God-given gifts and maximizing the opportunities he gives help us to reach our fullest potential in life.
Character building sets life's goals, overcoming obstacles that tend to blind our vision and asking things others would have given up on long before.
"Character is what a person is in the dark" (Anonymous).
"The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out" (Thomas Macaulay).
"Character is what you are when everybody goes home" (Unknown author).
Moses looked within himself and found God who assisted in building his character for life. That same God desires to do that with the people of this generation!
Moses models for modern leaders how to deal with faithless followers. Howard Hendricks writes: "Courage, strength, wisdom. All these resources our God promised. They come from him. They work through his power. And they accomplish his purposes. May we claim them and use them with creative brilliance to break the walls of ignorance and weakness in our world."4
____________
1. Charles Swindoll, The Tale Of The Tardy Oxcart (Nashville: Word Publishing, 1998), p. 428.
2. God's Little Devotion Book (Tulsa, Oklahoma: Honor Books, 1995), p. 109.
3. Reuben P. Job and Norman Shawchuck, A Guide To Prayer (Nashville: The Upper Room, 1983), p. 370.
4. Howard G. Hendricks, Color Outside The Lines (Nashville: Word Publishing, 1998), p. 222.
God harnessed the verbally handicapped, shy, and non-assuming Moses with a company of impatient, immature, and volatile people called the Hebrews. He led them out of Egyptian bondage into the dwellings on the heights of Sinai. It is there that Moses and the people witnessed God's revelation, law giving, the command for a tabernacle for the Great "I Am," and established a priestly tradition.
As Moses and God conversed on Mount Sinai the people became despondent, impatient, and fearful that their leader had died or abandoned them. They needed something solid, something visible, to calm their fears of the future. Their restlessness led them to demand of Aaron, second in command, for gods to lead them. A golden calf was crafted to do just that. They substituted the false for the real. The faithlessness of the people came in the moments of delay.
Moses listened as God delivered monumental directions for the lives of the people. It was a lengthy dissertation from God to Moses spanning several days, preventing Moses from coming down from the mountain. In the Schocken Bible, Everett Fox translates the tardiness of Moses as "shamefully-late." Can you imagine the conversations: "Where is Moses?" "What's he doing up there all this time?" "I wonder if he died up there?" "He doesn't care about us! If he did, he would be down here leading us into the Promised Land!"
Delay ... how we hate it. Have you ever become impatient waiting for the pastor or the Board to make a decision? Have you ever become impatient with God to give you direction? Sometimes we feel God is "shamefully late" causing us anguish, consternation, discomfort, and embarrassment.
The truth is God is always on time. His time table is not ours. F. B. Meyer wrote, "If God told you on the front end how long you would wait to find the fulfillment of your desire or pleasure or dream, you'd lose heart. You'd grow weary in well doing. So would I. But he doesn't. He just says, 'Wait. I keep my Word. I'm in no hurry. In the process of time I'm developing you to be ready for the promise.' "1
Patience brings out the best of each soul. Promises from God are always on time. Ambition is consecrated to God. Time and talent and treasure are used for the will of God. Immortality is given to those who wait upon the Lord. Earnestness of purpose commands the respect of humankind. Nearness to God stops our wandering from Him, centering on Christ sheds light on our daily journey. Efficiency is called out of each person in critical emergencies of life. Don't worry about God's delay -- worry about your own delay before God!
The faithlessness of the people comes in the moments of distraction. The people became impatient with Moses and his God. They needed something that would distract them from their boredom and idleness. It became painfully obvious to them that Moses was probably dead in the mountains or he would have hurried down to lead them. If Moses was dead so was his God. How quickly they had forgotten the awesome demonstration of God's power -- Moses relating the "burning bush" encounter, the ten plagues, the rescue from Egyptian slavery, the deliverance at the Sea, the revelation at Sinai of the Ten Commandments.
Their false assumption leads them to distraction from God's desires to their own desires. This desertion from God occurs on the very site where God initiates His covenant with the people. There was a fearfulness on the part of the people toward getting too close to the divine Holy God of the universe. With Moses' delay in coming down the fear or reverence for the "Almightiness" of God subsides. The people are already tired of an "invisible" God and demand that Aaron give them a god they can see, feel, and touch. They break God's second command of not making a representation of him to worship. How can one make a visible image of an invisible spirit anyway? The people tried fashioning a golden calf -- a counterpart to the Canaanite Baal god in the form of a bull -- saying, "This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the Land of Egypt." God's love had to be crushed in that moment of audacity! He had led them, not some object made by their sinful hands.
When we take our eyes off the living God we become distracted from the truth:
1. the truth of the sovereignty of God;
2. the truth of the word of God;
3. the truth of communication with the Living God;
4. the truth of moral and ethical sensitivity;
5. the truth of holy living;
6. the truth of character and value;
7. the truth of God's purpose in our lives;
8. the truth of salvation.
What distracts from God cannot be tolerated. Jenny Lind had a successful career as an operatic soloist. With her fame arrived wealth. At the height of her fame and wealth she left the stage and never returned. People speculated as to the reason she left the stage and, for her part, seemed content to live the rest of her life in the privacy of her home.
One warm day towards evening she was sitting by the seaside with her Bible on her knees reading. A friend stopped by and caught her reading the Bible as the gentle breeze blew and the glorious glow of sunset was unfolding. The friend quizzed her as to why she abandoned the stage at the height of her success. Her answer was classic: "When every day it made me think less of this (laying a finger on her Bible) and nothing at all of that (pointing to the sunset), what else could I do?"
Our world is so distracted by "things" and may never understand a person's decision to follow God's way. But then, God cannot understand a decision for the pursuit of the world's offering.2
The faithlessness of the people comes in moments of indifference. The people had become indifferent to their God and to their fellow Israelites. All they could think about was their selfish motives, ambitions, and circumstances.
Malcolm Muggeridge commented on today's society when he wrote, "The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for, and deserted by everybody. The greatest evil is the lack of love and charity, the terrible indifference toward's one's neighbor who lives at the roadside assaulted by exploitation, corruption, poverty, and disease."3
An individual's indifference to others can ultimately contribute to that person's social, physical, or spiritual downfall. Whom can we rescue? Whom can we save?
Contrasted to Israel's faithlessness is the faith of Moses. The characterization of Moses' faith demonstrates his firm belief in God through a variety of acts. Moses' faith is demonstrated through his intercession with God on the people's behalf.
The people rebelled against God, ultimately. Their foreplay of creating the god of the golden calf was preceded by sexual orgies which accompanied fertility rites. Their apostasy led them to actions of irresponsible immortality. This new millennium's application to the text becomes apparent -- faithlessness to Jehovah God leads to a diminishing of moral sensitivity.
God's people must rally and intercede for a world steeped in its own lust and moral decay. A call for many Moseses who know how to pray intercessory prayers on the world's behalf is desperately needed.
A. A. Wilson wrote in the December 25, 1975, Pentecostal Evangel Magazine, "God may pass by our elaborate programs and outstanding talents, but he will never pass by the prostrate form of an intercessor."
What must the Christian intercede for today? The answer is for the salvation of the lost, the healing of the sick, the hope of the hopeless, the action of the inactive, the power of the powerless, the will of God, and the Kingdom of the King.
Moses' love is demonstrated through his compassion and concern. Moses saw the Israelites' pitiful spiritual illness and wanted to help them. There was a yearning in his heart that they be spared -- even in their foolish state of mind and heart. Moses genuinely was touched by their lack of spiritual understanding and attempted to do something about it.
The nightly news showed the shocking pictures of Buddhist priests setting themselves on fire in the market squares in the 1960s, burning their images into my youthful mind. For them it was a demonstration of offering the body for the salvation of their spirit. Christ asks us to sacrifice ourselves not in death but in life. We pour ourselves -- heart, soul, body, mind, and spirit -- into his cause because of our love for him. We cannot work our way to heaven. Compassion, meaning love for others, comes because of our love for God. The practical side of mercy helps us to admit our need of God; give people a listening ear; take time and give it away to someone else; feed the hungry; give blood; clothe the naked; shelter the homeless; minister to the prisoners of life.
Who today needs to be shown mercy by you? Is it a friend, a family member, a stranger on the streets -- who?
Moses' faithfulness included a show of character. Character comes with acceptance of responsibility. Taking full responsibility for our God-given gifts and maximizing the opportunities he gives help us to reach our fullest potential in life.
Character building sets life's goals, overcoming obstacles that tend to blind our vision and asking things others would have given up on long before.
"Character is what a person is in the dark" (Anonymous).
"The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out" (Thomas Macaulay).
"Character is what you are when everybody goes home" (Unknown author).
Moses looked within himself and found God who assisted in building his character for life. That same God desires to do that with the people of this generation!
Moses models for modern leaders how to deal with faithless followers. Howard Hendricks writes: "Courage, strength, wisdom. All these resources our God promised. They come from him. They work through his power. And they accomplish his purposes. May we claim them and use them with creative brilliance to break the walls of ignorance and weakness in our world."4
____________
1. Charles Swindoll, The Tale Of The Tardy Oxcart (Nashville: Word Publishing, 1998), p. 428.
2. God's Little Devotion Book (Tulsa, Oklahoma: Honor Books, 1995), p. 109.
3. Reuben P. Job and Norman Shawchuck, A Guide To Prayer (Nashville: The Upper Room, 1983), p. 370.
4. Howard G. Hendricks, Color Outside The Lines (Nashville: Word Publishing, 1998), p. 222.
