The Heart of a
Spiritual Leader
Pastor
12 Moses said to the LORD, "You have been telling
me, 'Lead these people,' but you have not let me know whom you will send with
me. You have said, 'I know you by name and you have found favor with me.' 13 If
you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to
find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people." 14 The
LORD replied, "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you
rest." 15 Then Moses said to him, "If your Presence does not go with
us, do not send us up from here. 16 How will anyone know that you are pleased
with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish
me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?" 17
And the LORD said to Moses, "I will do the very thing you have asked,
because I am pleased with you and I know you by name."
In my last message on Moses (August
4, Encouraging Reluctant Leadership) I reflected on the reluctance of Moses
to accept that God was sufficient for him.
As a result of his lack of dependence upon God, his lack of faith in
God, God assigned Aaron to speak for Moses.
Moses could have been the singular spokesman for
Moses has absolutely no doubt
about the greatness of God. Pharaoh
might be powerful, but God is more powerful.
The
The golden calf episode disappointed
Moses considerably. The people who seemed to be so sure of God just a few days
before, turned to worshipping idols they themselves had made. His supposedly great sidekick, Aaron, had
showed that he was not yet ready for greater leadership. When the people wanted an idol, Aaron lamely
went along. When Moses challenged him,
Aaron said (Exodus 32:24) 'Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.' Then
they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this
calf!"
Moses
knew that he had his hands full. The people were worthless. His staff was no better. Now God was telling Moses that he was leaving
also. This is not a great place to
be. It would be hard to imagine anything
worse. In the face of such
disappointments, most leaders would have packed it in.
Instead, Moses
made one of his most important decisions.
He threw himself 100% into God’s camp.
You have to love the conversation between God and Moses. Moses rehearses three important facts: First,
You have called me to lead. Second, you
know my name. Third, I have found favor with you. That becomes the premise for his most important
statement found in verse 13“If you are pleased with me, teach me your
ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you.” Let’s look at these in greater depth.
First, God has
called me to lead. Leadership in the
Lord’s work is a gift of the Holy Spirit.
There are gifts of Apostle, Pastor, Teacher and similar such gifts that
we normally associate with leadership.
In addition to these, there is the gift of leadership. That puts leadership in the hearts of some
people. That is where it comes
from. This is the main reason why the
Assemblies of God has no trouble with women in leadership. We say if God calls them and gives them the
gift of leadership, we go with God.
Leadership comes in all shapes and sizes.
Second, Moses
noted that God knew his name. Verse 11 of this chapter notes
that Moses and God spoke face to face in the tent of meeting. There was a sense of closeness. Moses met God in that place. God is like that. When make the journey to the spiritual tent
of meeting he will be there to meet with us.
He will call us by name. He knows
who we are. He knows the concerns of our
heart. Long before Isaiah, Moses
understood the personal nature of the call of God. Isaiah 43:1 summarizes this: “But now, this is what the LORD says-- he
who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O
In John 10
Jesus use the image of the Shepherd to say the same thing. “3 The watchman opens the gate for him,
and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and
leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of
them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.”[1]
Third, Moses
confidently declares that he has found favor with God. In spite of all the trouble in the camp of
Upon these
three positives Moses makes his request.
In the request, he reveals the heart of a spiritual leader. He says it in verse 13 “If you are pleased
with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with
you.” Moses knows that the future is
in knowing God’s ways.
It takes
humility to say that to God or to anyone else.
I want to know you. It is not
about me, it is about you. I want to
know who you are and what you are about.
The presumption is that once I know who you are, I will bend to fit you.
Recently, I
was talking to a young man about the Lord and he was opening his heart to God’s
plan for his life. I said to him, if you
are going to know God you will have to know God on his terms, not yours. We are inclined to try to make God in our
image. We have our concepts about who is
and what he should be like. But if God
is God at all, he cannot be the extension of our thoughts and ideas. He is who he is. You have to accept him for who he is and as
he is.
His answer to
me was very insightful. We had talked
earlier about his girlfriend and what she was like. I learned that she was her own kind of person
with her own values. I got the
impression that she was very strong willed.
She was highly distinctive and he liked that. When I said that he would have to accept God
for who he is, he answered that he thought he could because that was also the
key to getting along with his girlfriend.
It is a funny
thing about marriage. When we decide we
are willing to bend to the other person, we can make it work. But when we want them to bend to fit us, it
never works. That is a mystery, but I
submit that it is profoundly true.
In some ways
it is an odd request because of two factors.
First, Moses has just spent an extended period of time with God on
Moses had a
similar heart to that of Paul. In both
Galatians and Philippians, Paul says that he wants to know Christ. In Galatians 4 Paul contrasts the law of
Sinai with slavery. It is not truly a
means to know God. Paul said, 3 So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the
basic principles of the world. 4 But when the time had fully come, God sent his
Son, born of a woman, born under law, 5 to redeem those under law, that we
might receive the full rights of sons. 6 Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit
of his Son into our hearts,
the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." 7
So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made
you also an heir. 8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to
those who by nature are not gods. 9 But now that you know
God-- or rather are
known by God-- how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable
principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?
There is a similar
idea in Philippians 3:1-11
1Finally,
my brothers, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same
things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. 2 Watch out for those dogs,
those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh. 3 For
it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who
glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—4 though I myself
have reasons for such confidence. If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put
confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the
people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to
the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for
legalistic righteousness, faultless. 7 But whatever was to my profit I now
consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a
loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,
for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain
Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes
from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-- the righteousness
that comes from God and is by faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of
his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like
him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the
dead. 12 Not that I have already
obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take
hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
In both places
Paul contrasts knowing the law with knowing God. That is exactly where Moses was. He didn’t want to just obey the law, he
wanted to know God. If he truly knew
God, he could please him. He wouldn’t
even need the law. He would bend to life
to God even if there were no law. This
is the heart of a spiritual leader.
Moses did not
stay focuses on the problem. What he
wanted even more than an answer was the one who is the answer.
In your
troubles, can you take the same attitude?
Your problems are important to God and he will help you with them. But he is more than the cosmic problem
solver. He reveals himself so he can be
known. In the end, all our troubles can
be used as ultimate stepping-stones.
They mark they pathway to God himself.
[1]The passage continues 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice." 6 Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them. 7 Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. 11 "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. (NIV)