Numbers 12:11-13 Bible Study | Episode 755

August 30, 2024

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Numbers 12:11-13   Bible Study | Episode #755

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to hope alive, applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up.

His word to you and allow you.

To see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today, in Jesus name.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in members chapter twelve, and we're dealing with Miriam and Aaron and that story of, of them fomenting a rebellion against Moses. And that's what they were in the process of doing. And we've gone into great detail about why and what the purposes are. Now we're going to deal with. Well, we're going to deal with how Moses responds to Miriam getting leprosy. And there is so much meat here. There's so many things that make me think that hit my mind as I read through this story. And this story is well known to me. It may not be well known to you or well known in the church. It is well known to me. It's well known to me for a lot of reasons. It deals with some cultural issues that pastors should know about, understand and be able to articulate to their congregation. It deals with some issues as far as how we deal with leaders and how we perceive them. It also deals with Moses, and Moses in his leadership position. And he has got to deal with a very close, personal family member, two of them, in fact, who are murmuring against him for whatever reason, they were, I guess, instigated into it. We talked about yesterday. The picture seems to indicate that maybe Miriam had been instigated by those around her, some of her friends, some of the people in the world, that Moses was not hearing from God. He was doing wrongly and. And they needed to set him straight in some way. But they were just murmuring amongst each other, trying to figure out how to get that done, and God stepped in and handled the problem. Now, understanding that and seeing that, how does, how does Moses handle this? How does Moses deal with this? And I think it is a. I think it is a very great lesson. And this, perhaps is the reason why I'm so familiar with this passage, is Moses response how does he deal with his sister getting leprosy and his brother begging him to pray to God? Notice, Aaron does not feel like he can speak to God because he can't. He doesn't feel like he can speak to God about this issue because he can't. He is definitely in the, in this, in this story, presenting us a pattern of failed leadership. And it is becoming quite apparent that he is having trouble leading and being a leader. And why do I say that? Well, like I said, he did not stop the rebellion that took place when they made the golden calf. His two sons, two of his four sons were killed because they, they presented strange fire on the altar. So he was in charge of that process. He was in charge of those sacrifices being made the proper way, and his sons decided they were going to do their own business and they're going to do it in their own way. And he lost two sons because of that. And notice, as you go up the ladder of leadership, as you go up the ladder of responsibility in the kingdom, the consequences of poor management and poor leadership can often be very stark and concerning, really, if you are a leader. That's why those who. The Bible just takes us all the way back to the very start of leadership, kind of. If anyone who wants to be a leader, you know, you need to go into that soberly. James gives us that instruction because you know you're going to be held to a higher standard. That's, that's what James says. And so, understanding that, that, uh, you need to enter that soberly, at the very root, uh, position of taking on a few people and becoming their discipler or their teacher, uh, is a, is a important understanding, because the higher you go in leadership, the more. And when I say higher, I'm just talking about the moral responsibility that God gives you. I'm not talking about trying to grow up, trying to advance in some human institution. I'm talking about advancing in the kingdom. And you need to understand that when I'm saying this, I'm not talking about trying to gain favor with institutions or human organizations. I'm talking about gaining favor with God and him placing you in positions of authority over more and more things that are very highly kingdom related or they are directly kingdom work. When, when that's going on, it's, it's, it. The, the burden of that responsibility is very important and very difficult sometimes. And so Aaron, when he, when he was in those operations, had those opportunities, tell you the truth, he failed. And his, his failures are fairly stark now. When he was helping Moses, he was good at that. So maybe that's what he should have been doing the whole time. But, but God set him apart and set up the levitical and the priesthood, levitical ministry and the priesthood under him. So God made that choice. But, but Aaron can't sing to, in his interpersonal relationships, help people do the right thing. And so Moses is having to deal with this, and I'm gonna leave the names, leave people nameless as I tell certain stories just because I need to. But, but when I was first called to the ministry and in the denomination that I was in, you would come up front and let everybody know that God was calling you in the ministry. And I was at a large church. And at that, at that time, I, there was a lot of people there and a lot of people who thought that they concurred with that call of mine. And so at the end of the service, I came forward and there are a lot of people said that they wanted to be a part of ministry, that they shook my hand and said they want to be a part of helping me grow in the ministry. And we're talking hundreds, maybe even close to a thousand. And at the very, very end, one of my former pastors, who was retired, who was there at the church, came up to me at the very end, I'm literally, it's just me and my wife and him and his wife in the sanctuary. And he says to me, all those people that just shook your hand and were so excited for you, don't be surprised one day when you wake up and most of them have stabbed you in the back. And I thought, well, that's real nice for you to tell me, old pastor, a pastor of my childhood. But I found that, you know, that that's not a untrue story. Ministry serving as leaders is not a people pleasing business. It's a God pleasing business. And it should not, your joy and your purpose should not be from the people, it should be from God. You've got to get your peace and joy of serving God from God and not from others. Now, I'm telling you this. Me being a pastor of a church, I'm telling you this because when you get into ministry, if you're getting into ministry so that you can receive the accolades of people, that's not going to be the case all the time. And in fact, a lot of times that's going to be, be not the case. They may pet you and lounge you for a moment, give you that encouragement for a moment, because you're doing something that they need you to do to make certain things happen, but that doesn't mean that they're going to do that forever. And if you ever start changing things or doing things that God tells you to do that they don't want, they're going to soon turn on you as quick as possible. And, and you need to, you need to know that. And you need to understand that, that how they react and how, how others deal with that is not your business. It's not, it's not for you to worry about. And you can't be angry at them for being the sheep that they are. You can't do that. You've got to keep on loving people, keep on doing ministry, whether, whether certain people in certain places like it or nothing. It's not about what they want. It's about what God wants. It's not about what you want. It's about what God wants. And so we're going to do, we're going to do God's work and God's ministry, and we're not going to, we're not going to be seeking human affirmation for it. We're going to be seeking to see the Holy Spirit move in power and for us to be in a position so that he might use us. That's what we're doing. That's what ministry is. And so Moses, in my humanness, if I were Moses and my brother and sister turned on me, I might say, what you deserve. That's not how Moses handles it. And the reason that's not how Moses handles it is because he'd grown in his leadership, he'd grown in his ministry, and he'd grown as a man. And he was a man who was able, was capable of killing others if he thought it was the right thing. He killed the egyptian overseer. That's what caused him to go out into the median wilderness and eventually come to find God. But he was capable of taking some very extreme and rash positions when he thought something was not right. Well, it's quite clear that his sister and brother had acted wrongly toward him. That's, that's clear from this passage. And so Aaron says to Moses, oh, my lord, please do not lay this sin on us in which we have done foolishly and in which we have sinned. Notice Aaron realizes, uh oh, we have messed up. And Miriam is, is, is a goner if we don't, if we, if, if something doesn't change. And he repents and turns, and he turns to Moses and says, oh, my lord, he realizes, you know, he's messed up, please do not lay this sin on us. Meaning, don't hold us to this. And that's exactly what he's saying to Moses, is Moses, you don't hold this against us, don't lay it on us and keep it there. Will you please forgive us? That's really what he's saying. When he said, don't lay this sin on us, he says, because we did it, and we were foolish and we sinned. Now, listen, it doesn't matter whether he does this or not. It doesn't matter whether Aaron asked for forgiveness or not. As a leader, Moses, if he's gonna leave his people, well, he's gotta have a forgiven heart. No way around it. Even if he thinks he's been done totally wrong, which in this case, he has. You have to forgive. You need to be forgiving. Even when they're not asking for forgiveness. You need to be loving even when they're singing. You need to chase after God's way of doing things, even when others are headlong chasing after the world. And Moses is apt to do this. We see this. Just as Aaron has shown a clear pattern of poor leadership, Moses has shown a clear pattern of always making the right decision. He. Now, that doesn't mean he's perfect, but he. When he's in leadership and he's making a leadership position, making a leadership decision, he has shown that he generally makes the right decision. He does right by his people. And in many ways, he is taking on that type of Christ we talked about. He is. He is being Jesus. A picture of Jesus before Jesus comes to the earth. And what does he do? Aaron says, please do not let her be as one dead, whose flesh is half consumed when he comes out of the mother, when they come out of the mother's womb. What he's saying is, don't let her have this leprosy. And notice in verse 13, so Moses cries out to the Lord, saying, please heal her, o God, I pray. Now, I want you to notice here, because there's, like I said, a lot of meat here. It's not necessary that Moses go into this deep, long prayer about how he's forgiven her. It's not. It's not necessary. It's not. It's just not even. Not even on Moses mind notice. It's also not necessarily that he go into a lot of detail with God about how to get this done or what he wants. Moses's prayer is seven words. I'm not sure it's seven in the Hebrew. I need to look at that. But it's I mean, it's not many words. If it's not seven in the Hebrew, it's less than seven. And so it's a not a long prayer. This woman has a severe illness that will separate her from the whole camp of God's people and will cause her to eventually die. And notice Moses prayer is going to bring about her healing. That's the case, but it's not very long. Why? Well, because Moses speaks to God face to face. He doesn't have to go into a whole lot of trying to conjure or convince God that this path is the path that needs to be gone down. He just knows that he has a responsibility as a leader, as a family member, as a friend, as whatever he is in his position here. He has a responsibility to pray for this woman who happens to be a sister. But even if she wasn't his sister, she was just a regular person out in the camp of Israel, and she had fomented this rebellion and this had happened to her. Even if that had taken place, he had a responsibility as her leader, as her deliverer, in this sense, as a type of Christ, to pray for her. And he doesn't have to go into a whole lot of detail about it. So many times we feel like we've got to do these great prayers in order to see God move. I think of the movie Patton where they're in the battle of the bulge and the weather's terrible, and Patton goes to the chaplain and asks him to write a prayer so that the weather will break. And he says, I want it to be long, and I want it to. He's basically saying, I want you to write a really good, long prayer to get God to do this. And you can tell the chaplain's a little bit taken aback, and he is. But Patton says, if you'll write a good prayer, it'll happen. And that's not how it works. That's just totally not how it works, okay? That's not how God moves. It's not the quality of the prayer. It's the quality of the faith. It's the relationship with God. Moses knows that he has the power to seek God's face because he has been in God's presence. And the reason that's the case is because he's been a man of faith his whole life. And so when he speaks to God, he speaks to God as if he knows God, because he does. And when he speaks to God and asks for something, it. He understands that those things are going to take place. He understands that those things are going to take place. Okay. And so, as that happens and as that goes on, you need to see that Moses is praying. A powerful prayer. Ever have short and succinct. It is a powerful prayer of faith. Please heal her. Oh, God, I pray. Hmm. Now, there's going to be healing here, and we need to deal with this last passage tomorrow because it's. It's got a lot of meat in it, too. But I want you to notice that Moses is not concerned. His position as a leader and how he's going to respond and act toward things is not based off of the actions of God's people, whether that's good or bad. It is not. It is based off of. It's based off of his understanding who God is and how he relates to God and walks with God himself. And that's what makes him a great leader. He is not taking a pole of what people think. He is doing what he knows God has said, doing it well, doing it in the character of God, with love in his heart, even for those who've wronged him and changing the world. The lesson here is not Miriam and Aaron. The lesson here is Moses always seems to be that way, doesn't it?

As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace today, in Jesus name.