What Happens When Leaders Fail?

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

It's been about a year since I've been here, and what I notice is that this church is getting younger. So I don't know if that's because Drew and Dan are not here this week to carry up your average age, but I look out and I see a sign of a healthy church is that there are more young people here, there are more young families, and I know that's been a blessing to you, and it is an encouragement to me as well. In fact, the last time I was here was June 27th of last year, 2021. That was the second week of two times that I was here and giving a message for Drew. I don't know if you went back to the podcast or the website and listened to my messages, you would notice that there's a distinct difference between the 20th and the 27th. On the 27th, I was a lot more excited to be here. I was a lot more enthusiastic and I don't know if it comes across in the message or

not, but the reason why is because that morning my wife took a pregnancy test and we found out on June 27th after waiting for two years that she was pregnant. And so we came here and we were super excited, but again, we couldn't tell anybody because we had just found out. The Osters took us to lunch that afternoon and I swear I wanted to tell you, like three hours after we found out, but they stayed to wait like a month or two. So that's what we did. But my son Zachary, he's in the back there. He was so excited to be here this morning that he woke me up at five o'clock. So it's good to know that he's excited. I'm excited to be here and that we get to spend and share this time together. Let's begin before we get into the word of God by opening up in prayer.

Father God, we come before you and Lord, we just thank you so much for the opportunity that we have to gather to be a part of this church family, to see friends again, and to open up your word together, to know that we are maybe separated by distance, but not separated in our beliefs and in our love for you. And so we thank you so much for the ministry that is happening here at South Burleson, for your presence in this place and the ways in which you are working. We pray that that would continue, even and especially this morning, as we open up your word together, Lord that you would teach and instruct us that it would not be me on this stage, that it would be your spirit speaking through me, giving us words and insight and challenge and encouragement and all of the things that we need in order to point us to you and the revelation of your son Jesus Christ as revealed through the word of God. So we thank you again

for our Savior and for this community and this fellowship. We pray all of these things and by the name of Jesus our Lord. Amen. When I was in middle school, I think I was fifth or sixth grade, We had Jim, and during Jim one day, it was open period where the coach, whether he was just lazy or didn't have anything prepared that day, he just threw a bunch of basketballs out on the court and said, all right, have at it. And so the 10 most athletic and most popular kids grabbed one ball, and they kind of took the full court. And so sadly, I know this is a surprise to many of you, but I was not one of those 10 as a fifth grade middle schooler, the most popular athletic kid. But they grabbed that ball, they started playing basketball. They took up the main court and then there were kind of the goals that were on the side. And I remember going up to one of those kids and asking like, hey, can I sub in, can I

play? And the kids said, yeah, yeah, sure. When one of us gets tired, we'll sub out and you can sub in. And that never happened. Like all five on each team, they played the entire time. the entire gym period, they weren't going to sub out. I knew they wouldn't because there were 20 kids kind of waiting to play on that same court. But me and a few other guys, I think it was a two on two game, there was one goal off to the side and we grabbed a basketball and we started playing on that side court. And about five, ten minutes into our game, somebody came up to me and said, hey, would you mind if one of us subs in? And I said, yeah, sure, when one of us gets tired, you can sub in. I had no intention of letting that kid play. My words betrayed the fact that my actions were saying something completely different. It was even hypocritical because I was so upset that that kid in the first group of

ten wouldn't allow me to play with his team, and yet I did the same thing when I was asked and it didn't hit me until like later that afternoon that I was a hypocrite, right? That I had said something and meant the complete opposite. And I think that in life that happens a lot, probably more than we would care to admit. You know, it's like we've heard the example of a tube of toothpaste, that our words are like squeezing out that toothpaste and as hard as we try, as much as we would want to, you can't get the toothpaste back in the tube. And the same thing is true with our actions. And so today, what I want to do is examine a scripture, a story in the Old Testament that's probably one of the most profound stories, but also one of the most heartbreaking. And let me go ahead and just lay it out for you. This isn't one of those messages that you're going to hear during the 60-second clip on Air 1

when they want to encourage you in between songs. This is one where it's kind of sad. And there's a lesson here. There's a profound meaning behind this story, okay? And I will try to communicate that. And I do also want to leave you with some encouragement. So please don't think that we're all gonna walk out of here with our heads hung low. But sometimes the word of God does humble us. Sometimes the word of God even humbles its leaders. And we see through the example of the people that interacted with the Lord, that heard the word of the Lord, whether they obeyed or disobeyed, the consequences of that obedience and their actions directly resulted from what they responded to the Lord.

So first of all, we have to set up a prologue and draw the story to where we're ultimately going. Let's turn first to Exodus chapter 17, and we're gonna be reading through verses one through seven. So in Exodus 17, God has just rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt after 400 years. This people has been, they've been enslaved to the most powerful nation on the entire earth and through 10 miracles and God showing his mighty hand, he's raised up Moses to lead the people out of Egypt. Now the people are leaving Egypt, they've conquered this army, they've seen the army destroyed in the Red Sea And we get to this point where they start grumbling and complaining, and this was going to be a common theme with the nation of Israel. But specifically in Chapter 17, the people are complaining, and maybe rightly so, because they don't have water. And so let's look at what happens.

In Chapter 17 of Exodus, verse 1, we read, Then all of the congregation of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of sin, according to the command of the Lord, and camped at Raphibium, and there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore, the people quarreled with Moses and said, give us water that we may drink. And Moses said to them, why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord? But the people thirsted there for water, and they grumbled against Moses and said, why now have you brought us up from Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst. So Moses cried out to the Lord saying, what shall I do to this people? A little more and they will stone me. Then the Lord said to Moses, pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile and go.

Behold, I will stand before you there on the rocket, Orib and you shall strike the rock and water will come out and that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. He named the place Massa and Meribah because of the coral of the sons of Israel and because they tested the Lord, saying is the Lord among us or not? The people were in the middle of the desert, they cried out, they grumbled against God and against Moses. Moses responds by calling out to the Lord, the Lord provides instruction, and God answers the prayer. Water is provided in the midst of the desert. This is an amazing miracle. And you would think that the people would internalize that, right? And that they would never sin anymore. Well, I think the opposite happens. The people continue to test the Lord. Next they ask for food. Next they complain about the armies that are in the way,

in between them and the Promised Land. And then we fast forward and we see as these people are journeying and even in Numbers chapter 13, they get them to the cusp of the Promised Land and they're about to go into the land And they see that the people that are already inhabiting the land have built up cities and are tall and strong and the people get scared. And they reject the Lord's promise. They reject the idea that God will be able to deliver them. And so instead they turn their back and God says, you know, you're not going to go into the land. This generation is not going to enter into the promised land. I will raise up another generation afterwards. And that's where we get the 40 years of wilderness wanderings. And this is all happening throughout the book of Exodus and into numbers. And so then we fast forward. So we're 40 years later and we're in Numbers chapter 20.

Numbers chapter 20, we'll start in verse 1. And this is where we want to spend the bulk of our time today. Let me read for you this first part of the passage. Numbers chapter 20 verses 1 through 7. And this is 40 years later after the story in Exodus 17 that we just read. Then the sons of Israel, the whole congregation, came to the wilderness of sin in the first month and the people stayed there at Kadesh. Now Miriam died there and was buried. There was no water for the congregation and they assembled themselves against Moses and Aaron. The people thus contended with Moses and spoke, if only we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord. Why then have you brought the Lord's assembly into this wilderness? For us and our beasts to die here? Why have you made us come up from Egypt to bring us into this wretched place? It is not a place of grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, nor is there water to drink.

Then Moses and Aaron came in from the presence of the assembly to the doorway of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces, and then the glory of the Lord appeared to them." So here we are 40 years later, this new generation is responding in much the same way that their parents did. They are at a place in the wilderness where they don't have water to drink. And then not only are they complaining about a lack of water, but they are complaining about a lack of food. They specifically say we don't have grain or figs or vines or pomegranates. It's funny and ironic because those were the same fruits that the spies brought out of the land, out of the Promised Land in Numbers Chapter 13. Of course these people don't have the vines and the grains and the figs and the pomegranates because they weren't in the Promised Land. They were in the wilderness. They forgot where they were, but they were still so focused on this water that it led

them to doubt God's promise and grumble against their leaders. And so how did the leaders respond? In verse 6 and 7, we see that they respond faithfully. They go to the Lord. They leave the assembly of the people, and they go to the tent of meeting. And so you would think that this is going to play out much like it did the first time, but that's not the case. Moses' response is initially consistent with what he was supposed to do, but let's read what happens next. In Numbers chapter 20 verses 8 through 12, the Lord speaks to Moses and he says, Take the rod, and you and your brother Aaron, assemble the congregation, and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it may yield its water. You shall thus bring forth water for them out of the rock, and let the congregation and their beasts drink. So Moses took the rod from before the Lord just as the Lord had commanded him.

And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock, and he said to them, Listen now, you rebels, shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock? Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod, and water came forth abundantly and the congregation and their beasts drank. But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, Because you have not believed me to treat me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them." Whoa. I mean, if you read that quickly, I think we almost missed what's happening there, right? Like, why is this so bad? Moses has been leading this people his entire life. Ever since God called him from the burning bush, Moses has been faithful to listen to God and provide for the people. He has endured their grumblings. He has cried out to the Lord before them.

And now all of a sudden, because instead of speaking to a rock, he hits it a couple of times, the Lord negates 40 plus years of ministry. That doesn't seem fair, right? I mean, could you imagine if you're like a biblical counselor and you counsel people for 40 years and you follow the scriptures and you tell them what you believe the Lord is directing you just say, and then one day you're just having a bad day, right? And somebody comes in and says like, hey, I've got these problems, you know, and you're like, just go jump in a lake. And then, then you're disqualified for ministry. And, and the Lord says like, you can't, you know, counsel anybody anymore just because of one bad day. But see, there's a lot, a lot going on here, so much more. When I first taught this passage, it was a few weeks ago in our, our growth group, our small group. And we were walking through the book of Genesis and Exodus,

and we got to this story among others. And one of the people in my group said, I just don't understand how this one action can disqualify someone after a life of ministry. And I thought that that was a profound point. It was an honest question, because I think if we were to look at this taking just a cursory glance, we would say, is the Lord being unfair here? because Moses has faithfully followed him his entire life. And then because he strikes the rock instead of speaks to it, now Moses' lifelong dream, this thing that he desired more than anything else to enter into the promised land, that was no longer on the table for him. The Lord said, you know, you're not going to lead my people into the promised land. It almost seems like the punishment doesn't fit the crime. Right? And I think it's okay to be honest if we think that. Again, after a cursory reading that that's our first instinct.

But I want to show you why the Lord is just and holy. Why when we read this story in its context, it makes perfect sense what's going on. And why Moses didn't just disobey the Lord, but so much more. So we have to examine again, the Lord's command. It was pretty simple. The Lord only asked Moses to do three things. He said, take the rod, assemble the congregation, and speak to the rock. And again, this was after Moses did what was right after leaving the assembly of the people and going to the tent of meeting, going to the presence of the Lord. Moses goes to the presence, it's like he's praying and saying, Lord, what is your instruction? God answers that prayer and says, these are the three things I want you to do. So what does Moses do? He takes the rod, he assembles the people, but then he speaks to the people. And that's his first act of disobedience, because the Lord never told him to speak to the people.

And then he strikes the rock instead of speaking to it. And what does the Lord say in verse 12? He says, because you have not believed me. Wait a minute. Why is there a question of belief here? Moses is still like, in essence, he's listening to the Lord, kind of. But I love what God says. He equates Moses' actions and the fact that those actions did not line up with the Lord's commands. He's saying, because you did not do as I commanded you, then you didn't believe me, right? And it's so much more than just trust here. He was disobeying the word of God. It's an unbelief in the power of God. I wonder if, and again, I don't want to speak into Moses' mind or put anything here in Scripture that's not here, but I wonder if Moses thought to himself, you know, it would be easier to strike the rock because I've done that before. The last time I struck the rock, I just did it once

and God made water flow through. God wants me to speak to the rock. Maybe, maybe I'll just hit it twice instead. And in doing so, Moses is expressing a disbelief. You see, in the New Testament, sometimes we divorce belief from action. We say, all you have to do is believe in Jesus Christ. Believe, like think, and we somewhat limit the word and the power. But in the Old Testament, that's never the case, and it shouldn't be the case in the New Testament either. Belief and action are married together. It's this idea that if you say you're going to do something and you do the opposite, then it doesn't matter what you just said. You're a liar and a hypocrite. In the Old Testament, belief is tied not only to what we say, but what we do. And I think the same thing is true with faith in the New Testament as well. We say we believe in Jesus Christ, but if we don't live like it,

then do our words really have any power? Moses is personifying this in a negative way. So not only does Moses express a disbelief in God by not doing exactly what the Lord says, But listen to what he says as he speaks to the people. He says, you rebels, some translations say like, you brood of vipers or something. So Moses is very harsh. God didn't ask him to rebuke or to be impatient with the people. God didn't ask him to speak to the people at all. I think that this was the Lord in his graciousness, meeting the people in their disobedience where they were at and providing a miracle in order to show his power, right? But by Moses speaking to the people, he was negating that. He was saying that God was angry with them or that God was passing judgment on them. When God wasn't doing any of that, and specifically, look at what Moses said to the people. "'Listen now, you rebels, shall we bring forth water

"'for you out of this rock?'" Who was bringing out the water? God was doing it. God wanted to do it by Moses speaking. But Moses said, shall we? As if him and God were partnering together to perform this miracle. And so there's a little bit of pride there. There's a little bit of arrogance maybe. Not only does he presume upon himself to speak to the people, but he says this thing that's not supposed to be true. Because he says, shall we bring water for you out of this rock? The Lord wasn't asking Moses to bring water out of the rock. He was just asking Moses to speak to it. And so we see that in doing this, Moses is mischaracterizing God. And he's even, one scholar, as I was going through and just studying this passage, one scholar says Moses was even mischaracterizing Christ in this passage. And let me show you what I mean. If we turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 10, Paul speaks about not only this instance,

but just the wilderness wanderings as well. In 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and following, he says, for I do not want you to be unaware brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea and all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink. For they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them and that rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not well pleased for they were laid low in the wilderness. that rock was Christ. So you see there's a picture of redemption here that God is trying to, or God wanted to take place. Moses speaking to the rock, the rock bringing forth water. But instead, Moses struck the rock, almost like, and one scholar again makes this comparison, it was like Moses was striking Christ when he wasn't told to do so.

And so that comparison there between the new and the Old Testament, as we see Paul further explain this verse and what's going on, I think it adds a lot of weight to, again, the mistake, the sin that Moses is making. But the third thing that we see in the Lord's rebuke is also that Moses had a disregard for the holiness of God. Okay, so not only did he did not believe and he had a little bit of pride, but he disregarded the holiness of God. Now, what do I mean by that? See, God says in his rebuke of Moses in verse 12, because you have not believed me, but you have not treated me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel. What does it say about a leader who goes before the Lord and is given instruction, very clear and specific instruction, and then goes out and does the opposite, or does something completely different? It's showing that God is not, if God were allow that disobedience to happen,

then God is not holy. And so I think that that, again, it's a sobering message because how many times have we heard, you know, well, the Lord is telling me to tell you to do this? Or you know, I believe that the Lord is saying this when really, really it's what we want that person to do, right? We have to be careful about using the Lord's name in vain like that. Disregarded for the holiness of God because how he spoke to God's people, it was also communicating judgment and God wasn't trying to communicate judgment, like we said earlier, God was trying to communicate mercy and grace to the people. Rebels shall we versus speaking to the rock in which God alone does the miracle. And so we see again from this passage, we see that Moses in essence disqualifies himself from entering into the Promised Land. Right? The title of my message is not on the worship guide or anything, but the idea that I want to communicate is

what happens when leaders fail? And that's what we're looking at. We're looking at Moses' biggest failure. And again, he has a lot of successes. He has a lot of ways in which he brings the people out of the land of Egypt, in which he listens to the people. He keeps them alive numerous times. They were grumbling against the Lord. The Lord says, I'm just gonna wipe them out and start all over. And Moses says, no, no, no. And he stands up on behalf of the people. But here in this instance, Moses makes a number of mistakes, not just one, but a number of mistakes. He sends multiple times and disregards the Lord's instruction, disregards the holiness of the Lord. And justly so, the Lord has to say, Moses, you're not going to enter the Promised Land. You did not regard me as holy in the sight of the people. As my representative, you did not believe what I had to say to you,

and you did not carry out my instructions as I explain them to you. So what do we learn from this? There are three things, three points of application, right? Is that leaders' actions matter. I mean, in the entire course of the Old Testament, we see, especially in the books of 1 Samuel and Kings and Chronicles, we see the main characters are the kings, are the leaders of the people, and the ways in which the leaders led, or the leaders had a strong relationship with the Lord, the entire people followed, right? And so we think about like even today in contemporary Christianity, it doesn't matter if there are 10,000 missionaries from the Southern Baptist Convention going all around the world. We are defined maybe fairly or unfairly by the actions of our leaders. You know, we're looked at by, And if you think about the contemporary church, and you think about the names like Bill Hybels

and Mark Driscoll, Perry Noble, Robbie Zacharias, and Jerry Falwell Jr., what do these guys have in common? It's that they disregarded the word of the Lord. They did not hold the Lord as holy, and they put themselves, their personalities, their image, they spoke to people in such a way and acted and behaved in such a way that did not regard the Lord as holy. And so I know what you're thinking, right? That's a great point. Leaders' actions matter, but our leaders, Drew, Dan, they're not here today. Here's my second point, is that we're all leaders. If you're leading in greeting, or you're leading in worship, or you're here today, on some level, you are a leader, either in your household, or your place of work, in your family, whether you're leading VBS next week, or in the next couple weeks. In some respect, we are all leaders. And so we have to believe and understand

that our actions matter, that we, just like James 3 says, we're held to a higher standard, the things that we say, the things that we do. When I was in college, I had a professor, a scientist, a paper, and he said, orthodoxy, which just translates to mean right belief, versus orthopraxy, right practice. Which one matters more? Is it better to believe the right things and just do whatever? Or is it better to do the right things and have wrong belief? So for example, the minister who falls, who proclaims from the pulpit all of the right things, preaches the word of God, but yet lives his life in a very hypocritical way. That would be someone who only practices orthodoxy. Or do you have somebody like say Gandhi who you know, evokes their life to service. But yet, you know, his beliefs, his maybe his understanding of who Christ is, is incomplete. Which one is more important?

Orthodoxy, orthopraxy, we gotta write a paper, right? If I had to go back, I think the answer is yes. Okay? Like you cannot separate the two. And I think the fact that we wanna you know, do so in our ivory powers, we want to say, hey, it's more important to believe the right things, or it's more important to do the right things. Like why do we have to separate them? Who's saying that we do? They're not separated in the scriptures. Moses found out here that there is no separation between what we believe and what we do. It's just like Jesus, when he shares the parable in the New Testament and he says, the father told his two sons, right, to the first son And he says, hey, go out and plow the field. And the son says, I'll do it. And then he doesn't do it. But then the father says to his other son, go out and plow the field. And the son says, I'm not going to do it.

But then he goes out and does it. Which one obeyed the father? Neither of them did. Neither of them did. Because not only do you have to do the thing, but you have to say that you're going to do it. You have to say that you're going to do it and then do it. And so leaders actions matter, we're all leaders. But then here's the encouragement. Is that leaders actions matter positively as well. You see, one person's actions, one person faithfully following the Lord can change and influence an entire congregation, an entire community, indeed an entire nation. One person's actions can influence positively, just like one person's actions can influence negatively. So there are rewards and things to be said for powerful obedience and humble obedience. You think about, you know, I named a lot of Christian leaders that have not acted in right regard, but there are others too, Tim Keller and Lee Shrobel.

I mean, you look at all of the pastors of local churches who are serving faithfully in their communities, all the missionaries who go without their names in the paper, people whose names were written in heaven, even though we may not hear about them on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Those people's actions matter as well. And they influence for a positive in ways that we may never even see. And I think that that's kind of the difference, right? That when we seek to make our own name great, when we seek to take upon ourselves a role that the Lord doesn't have for us, or we seek to put ourselves in place of the role that God would want us, and we point to ourselves instead of pointing to Him, then that's kind of where trouble starts. That was the pride that ended up being Moses' undoing. And so, leaders' actions matter positively. Here's my encouragement.

And these are the three things that Moses didn't do. These are the three things that any leader who has ever fallen, they've not done these three things. So my prayer for you, my encouragement is that we would continue to live in this way. First is to obey the word of the Lord. God gives us clear instruction. And sometimes the instruction that we find in scripture are the failures of others. And we've learned more, I mean, right, how many times have we learned more from our own failure than say from a success? How many times have we learned from a bad day or from messing up and the Lord uses that to grow us? We obey the word of the Lord. We also have to humble ourselves. Moses acted with a lot of pride. He sought to put himself in the place of God in front of the congregation. Shall we bring water for you out of this rock? We have to humble ourselves. And then third, we have to regard the Lord as holy.

the Lord is holy because I think that if we were to look at Moses' sin and we were to say, God was being unfair, God wasn't being just, the scales don't balance. Moses just made one small mistake. I think that that actually speaks to our own misunderstanding of sin is that we don't have a proper understanding of wrongdoing. And if we were to look at, say, a holy and righteous God who spoke the universe into being and we were to say, you're being unfair, I think that we have to point back at ourselves and ask ourselves, do we rightly understand sin? Do we rightly understand how our actions, our words, how there are consequences and they matter? And God tells us they matter. And it's not easy to hear, but it's important to live in such a way in which we believe that what we do here matters. I think so many times the Christian church is just looking for

converts, right? We just want to get you to say a prayer, but that's not what you guys are doing, you're asking, and that's not what the Lord asks us to do in Matthew 28, it's make disciples, right? Not converts. God is asking us to follow Him. That is a life lived in action and belief, not a one-time decision that has no meaning on everything else that follows. God is asking for disciples, not converts. So again, this isn't, you know, I don't want to say that we are saved by our actions. I have never said that. I don't believe that. Scripture doesn't say that because this isn't salvation at stake. Even for Moses, Moses did not disqualify himself from salvation. I want to point this out to you as well. There were a couple cool things that happened to Moses. One is that he does get to go onto the top of the mountain. He's with the Lord and he sees the Promised Land.

And again, this was just an earthly Promised Land. land. Don't make this the ultimate goal of say, Moses existence. In fact, this isn't even the last time that Moses appears in Scripture. Moses also appears in the New Testament. In Matthew chapter 17, he's on the mountain with Jesus, right? When Jesus is transfigured, Moses is there and they're speaking of the salvation of the world. You know, Moses is there. So just because Moses didn't get to walk onto some ground doesn't mean that his life was over. His life instead is a testimony and a witness to all of us that it is important, what you believe, what you do and what you say. And that yes, even someone who is as great of a leader as Moses, whose scripture says there is never going to be another leader like him, he wasn't perfect. And so that's why we can't just follow Moses. That's why we instead looked to Christ, because Jesus is the only person who is perfect, who

obeyed not only the law of Moses, but in his entire life, never once disobeyed. And so Jesus' example is most important. It's not salvation that's at stake, but it's our ministry, our witness to the world, and the name of God. And those things are important too, and we need to regard them as important. What we do, what we say, it matters. We're not earning salvation based upon our actions. And I don't even want to talk about earning heavenly rewards as if God has this great scale, right? That's not what scripture teaches. But in 1 Corinthians 9, verse 24 and 27, I will read this. as we conclude. Paul is writing and he's using the example of a race. He says, do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but

we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way not as without aim. I box in such a way not as one beating the air, but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified." Isn't it interesting that Paul uses the word disqualified there? As if Paul, right, you look at his resume after accepting Christ as a Savior. I mean, he did so many good things, missionary trips and writing half of the New Testament, and yet he still understood that he had to discipline himself in such a way as to not be disqualified. But he does all this stuff because he understood he didn't want his ministry to be taken away from him. And I think that's what we have to understand too. It's not our salvation that's going to be taken away by our actions. It's not if we mess up that God's going to turn his back on us and never give us another chance again. I'm not saying

any of that. I'm saying that God may, again, if you look at the Christian leaders, the witnesses, the people that have, through their negative example, harmed the name of Christ. They have disqualified themselves. And that's a dangerous thing. That's a scary thing because people's lives and salvation have been impacted by the witness of others. Our lives matter. Our actions impact others. And so you think about Paul using the example of a race and just trying and striving and behaving in such a way because he wants to be the best. He wants to be the one that wins. I mean, if you look at the people that left Egypt, there were about 600,000 men, okay? And so if you extrapolate women and children, it's about two million, we'll just say the men, because the men were the ones that didn't end up entering into the Promised Land. After 600,000 men leave Egypt, how many go into the Promised Land?

Only two. Only Joshua and Caleb. Only two men out of 600,000. In the same way, Paul talks about us running a race in such a way as to be a part of the ones that win. We want our lives to matter. We want our witness to matter. Jesus isn't asking us to just be converted to Him. He's asking for a life of ministry, a life where we hate sin, where we hate the negative examples and witnesses and anything that would take away from the holiness of God. Instead, we want to be those that not only are redeemed, but redeem others, that we see God working in the lives of others. And we're used as effective tools, not instruments that are discarded. God, not only does He save us, but He allows us to serve Him for the rest of our lives and to give us a ministry and a purpose that is more fulfilling than anything that we can do in and by ourselves. So let the example of Moses sober us a little bit, yes,

but also encourage us that the God uses and still uses the story of Moses, the examples, to teach us today. May we find favor in the Lord's sight, and may we act knowing that we're not doing it alone, God doesn't leave us alone. He gives us his spirit, he gives us a community and a fellowship and the strength in which we need to obey him. We just have to read the word, humble ourselves, and regard the Lord as holy. Let's pray. Father, we come before you, and we thank you for the scriptures. We thank you for the examples that we have, Lord of Moses and Aaron, and yes, for their humanity, for their failures that speak to us. But Father, that also point to Christ, and we know, Lord, that you don't expect perfection, that you know and you tell us that we are not perfect, but we thank you because you have provided one who is perfect. You have provided your son, Jesus Christ,

who never for a moment ever disobeyed or sinned against you. And even though he was perfect, he was still crucified, but that was done on our behalf. That was done for our sins. That was done for our mistakes, so that we may be found holy and righteous in your sight. And so out of that righteousness, Father, we pray that we would live a life of obedience and service to you. That we would recognize our roles as leaders in whatever station you would have us in. Father, that we would honor and obey you not out of any sense of obligation or fear, but Father, out of love and out of an outpouring of your grace and mercy that you abundantly give to us. Father, you are the rock from which living water flows. And may we drink this water and never thirst again. Father, we thank you for the presence of your Son, Jesus Christ, for the Holy Spirit, for the ways in which you are working in this church

and in this fellowship to draw us closer to you. May we be humbled and sober-minded. May we be repentant and remorseful and always ready to turn to you, knowing that you love us and that nothing we can do will ever change that love that you have for us. But you are always on our side and Lord we pray that we would be back home faithful and living a life of obedience to you. In Christ's name we ask these things. Well as we stand to sing this last song, if anybody needs prayer this morning, there are leaders ready at the back to pray with you. your need would be. Don't hesitate to get prayer this morning. Why don't we stand as we sing our last song?

Thank you so much, God. You are good, God. And I pray that as you send us from this place, Jesus, Would you marry those two things that were taught today, God, our beliefs and our actions, God. Make them one today and send us out from this place full of faith, believing in who you are. In Jesus' name, amen. Have a great week. Have a wonderful week.