In The Wilderness: Betrayal

Our sermon series continues in the book of Numbers, and today we come to Numbers chapter 12. We actually got ahead of Numbers 12 last week, so we're backing up. Just in case you're following sequentially in Numbers, that's what happened. We're looking at a passage this morning that continues this series of rebellions against God in the wilderness. In this passage, we hear of Miriam and Aaron opposing Moses.

Let's read chapter 12 together and then I'll pray and we'll dive in.

Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he married, for he had married a Cushite woman. And they said, "Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?" And the Lord heard it.

Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all the people who were on the face of the earth. And suddenly, the Lord said to Moses and to Aaron and Miriam, "Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting." And the three of them came out. And the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the tent and called Aaron and Miriam, and they both came forward.

And he said, "Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make myself known to him in a vision. I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?"

And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them, and he departed. When the cloud removed from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous like snow. And Aaron turned towards Miriam and behold, she was leprous. And Aaron said to Moses, "Oh my lord, do not punish us because we have done foolishly and have sinned. Let her not be as one dead whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes out of his mother's womb."

And Moses cried to the Lord, "Oh God, please heal her, please." But the Lord said to Moses, "If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be shamed seven days? Let her be shut outside the camp seven days, and after that, she may be brought in again."

So Miriam was shut outside the camp seven days, and the people did not set out on the march till Miriam was brought in again. After that, the people set out from Hazeroth and camped in the wilderness of Paran. — Numbers 12:1-16

Let's pray.

Lord God, we pray that you would meet with us. Lord, we pray that you would come in power, that you would speak to us through your word. Lord, that we would behold you in all of your glory. And that, Lord, through this process of hearing this passage and considering it, we would be shaped, we would be transformed. Lord, you are a God who not only redeems people but who sanctifies them and transforms them and makes them into your own image. Lord, we long to look like you. We long to be like you. We are tired of our sin. We are tired of our wrongdoing and we are tired of the impact that it has on others. Lord, would you change us? Would you make us whole? Would you make us righteous? And Lord, would you use us in the work of redemption that you're doing in the world? We pray that you would do that through your word today. Change us and use us. In Christ's name, we pray. Amen.

God's Process of Transformation

Well, we've been talking about this series in Numbers. We've talked a lot about how in the book of Exodus, God brought his people out of Egypt, and how in the book of Numbers, God is bringing Egypt out of his people. I've been thinking about that process. It is a process that all of us who are Christians see as parallel with our sanctification—our living through life, our going through life in the way in which God interacts with us. Although he has redeemed us and we know we are going to heaven, he has left us here for a time for at least two purposes. One, to be a witness to that redemption, to a watching world—to go forth and to share the gospel. But also for us to be shaped, molded, sanctified, transformed, and changed—for him to essentially take the world out of us.

Not too long ago, a couple years ago, my son John, who's really into studying things scientific, all sorts of things scientific, we got him a rock tumbler. You know what a rock tumbler is? It's like this little cylinder and you put rocks in it along with some grit or sand and you just run it for days. And over time, like the rough edges of the rocks in the sand rub off on each other. And then after a period of time, you pull out these beautifully polished stones. That's a picture of the wilderness and what God uses the wilderness for with us, what he's doing in our sanctification. It's not a pleasant experience, I imagine, for the rocks in the rock tumbler.

Rubbing up against the rough edges of other rocks and my experience in the church is that it's not always exactly a pleasant experience with all of you either. We rub up against each other with our rough edges, and that's not always fun. We experience that in various different relationships within our church.

I was thinking just this week about how different my wife is from me and how clear her sin is to me and how amazingly crystal clear my sin is to her. And what a blessing it has been to be married to this woman for so many years where we have been rubbing up against each other and God has been working on the rough edges of both of us. In our marriage, I can see how we're both a little more polished than we used to be. God also gave us five children—some of us have more rough edges than others, that's all I can say. That was a gift he gave us, and now we have a little bit more rocks in our tumbler.

Being at this church for as long as I have, I've seen it with you all. I've seen the way you've done it with me. I've even felt it this week. There have been many of you rubbing up against me and vice versa, maybe. God is using us. God is using even our sin for the purpose of sanctifying us.

In this passage, what we have is a curious tale of three leaders, one of whom was clearly the leader and two of whom rebelled against the primary leader. I'm going to tell you right from the jump: this is not a passage whose application is going to tell you that you better not dare question your leaders in the church. I'm telling you that on the front end because leaders in the church like to take passages like this and say, "You better not dare question leaders in your church." That has happened in the Christian church quite a lot, so I need to let the air out of the room and tell you that's not where we're going.

At the same time, there is some very poignant lessons in here for how leaders and followers are meant to interact in the wilderness. There is a very clear and pointed way in which this passage points us to the reality that when we start to get into the rock tumbler and start to question things that are going on in the rock tumbler, we need to be careful that we are not questioning the sanctifying process of God. We can definitely question each other, but we cannot question the Lord, and that is where this passage is going.

This passage is meant to reassure us that God, even in the ways in which he has put us into contact with other sinful human beings, is sovereign and at work and is good. So that's the whole sermon. I've already given you the conclusion. You can leave now if this makes you uncomfortable, but I'd like to dive into this passage a little bit deeper and look at some of the dynamics that we find here because I think we'll find it helpful.

Understanding Prophets

The first thing I want to do is give you a primer on prophets. I think oftentimes we just encounter prophets in the Old Testament without understanding what prophets are. The American Christian church is full of different definitions of what a prophet is, and most of the time I think we just think of prophets as fortune tellers. But this passage particularly has a very complex and robust understanding of what a prophet is.

I'm going to give you four points about prophets that you need to understand as we're diving into this. First of all, I want to say: who does God speak through historically in the Bible? If you look at the scope of Scripture, God speaks through an incredible variety of different things. Prophets are one of those things. He speaks through angels sometimes. Sometimes he speaks through prophets—some of them are men, some of them are women, some of them are young, some of them are old. He speaks through things like clouds and fire, bushes. In a couple chapters, he'll speak through a donkey in Numbers. Jesus says that if we don't cry out, the very rocks will. God can speak through whatever he wants.

There are no rules applied to God in terms of how he can communicate with us. He can do it however he pleases. These are not rules on how God will communicate to us, but these are kind of lessons on what a prophet is, how it's defined and how it's talked about in the Old and New Testament.

A prophet or prophetess really is a human who by the spirit especially speaks for God with regard to legal agreements or promises—covenants that He has made with His people. Let me say it again: A prophet or prophetess is a human who by the spirit essentially speaks for God with regard to the legal agreements or promises or covenants He has made with His people.

All three in this passage are prophets or a prophetess. Moses, Miriam, and Aaron are all functioning as prophets in the economy of God's people in the wilderness. Moses primarily, but Miriam and Aaron also. Miriam is called a prophetess. Aaron, by virtue of the fact that Moses is too afraid to be a prophet, so God kind of provides Aaron to speak on behalf of Moses. So Moses is kind of a prophet's prophet, but all of them by virtue of some kind of degree or role are speaking on behalf of God.

Following the coming of Christ, all of us are prophets too. Do you know that? Joel 2 talks about a time like the Old Testament where it was occasional for the Spirit to be poured out on certain people. Like, initially Moses was saying, "Hey, I'm the only prophet. Can I get some help here?" And then a chapter ago, God's Spirit just kind of spreads out and hits all these elders and there's so much of His Spirit that it just lands on these random dudes—Eldad and Medad, right? But it's not everybody, because Joshua comes to Moses and says, "Hey, what about these guys?" It clearly hadn't fallen on Joshua yet. So there was a limited number of prophets in the Old Testament, but Joel says there's gonna come a time where God's gonna pour out His Spirit on all His people—there's really gonna be an abundance.

Well, brothers and sisters, we're living in that time. We saw that in Acts 2—once the apostles receive the Holy Spirit, they go out and everybody thinks they're drunk and they start prophesying and they say, "Hey, this is the fulfillment of Joel 2." All believers who have received the Spirit are prophets. In the Christian church, I find often times people think I'm the prophet and you're not, but you are. We are all prophets.

So we all belong in this story because all of us here are kind of mixing it up as prophets, able to speak on behalf of God, dictating kind of some of the terms of His covenant. Why? Because we have it here. You have God's word. Anytime you read this, you are prophesying. This whole thing we're doing with one-to-one, you guys are prophesying to each other. Thank you for doing that. Thank you for not just making it me and Jeff and the elders. Please meet with one another, open this up and prophesy to one another, apply the covenant promises to each other's lives. That is what we are called to do and that's what we can do because we have the Spirit. We're all prophets.

Real Prophets and False Prophets

Second thing: there are real prophets and there are false prophets. This is gonna get messy. There are real prophets and false prophets in the Old Testament. In Deuteronomy, right after Numbers, Moses gets up and he says, "Hey, God's gonna send all these false prophets to test you. Here's how you test a prophet in the Old Testament." And in the New Testament, there are false prophets. There are false teachers. The apostles are battling and writing against those in some of their letters. And today, we experience that, right? There's all kinds of people who get up like me and they start talking, "Thus saith the Lord," and they're not really talking about this. They're not talking about the gospel. They're preaching on some kind of weird morality or some sort of prosperity or who knows what they're preaching, right? Joel Osteen—don't listen to Joel Osteen, right? There are false prophets in the world and you have to discern whether people who are speaking in the name of the Lord are really speaking in the name of the Lord.

Once again, you have the ability to test that. You have His word. You have His Spirit. Test. You have to ask questions. You have to show up right on Sunday morning and ask: Is Sutton really doing this? Is he really talking about the word of God? What is he doing?

So we're all prophets who have received the Spirit, who are believers, and there are real prophets and there are false prophets. And disrespecting God's prophet is an affront to God Himself. Disrespecting is an affront to God Himself. We could look at lots of different passages where this has proven out, but my favorite is definitely Elijah and the bears. You know that story, right? Elijah's walking around, there's these youths and they're like, "Go on up, you bald head." And all of a sudden, she bears come out and maul the youths. I just think that story is amazing.

I am not bald. I think Jeff must really love that story, right? But the point is this: those who speak, who represent God, who are prophets—if you disrespect them, that's paramount. That's kind of the same thing as disrespecting God himself.

Now, note point number two, right? You still have to question whether they really represent God. It's not wrong to question, but it is wrong to disrespect and disregard, especially because essentially what you're doing is disrespecting or disregarding God's word.

And why is that such a big deal? Why does God want His prophets to be respected? Why does He want His word to be respected? Why did the she bears come and maul the youths? Because He wants to make it abundantly clear that if you mock or disregard His word, or toss aside the gospel, or make fun of it and dismiss it as something that is foolish and silly and not something that you need desperately, then you will die.

It's not just about Him wanting you to show Him respect or His representatives respect. It is about Him communicating clearly this message of salvation. If you don't receive Christ Jesus and put your hope upon Him and receive this gospel as the thing that is your only hope in life and death, then you will die. He wants to be clear about that.

Degrees of Prophetic Authority

And then finally, here's what gets to some of the real complexity of this passage: there are degrees of prophetic authority in the wilderness. Miriam has the spirit. Aaron has the spirit. Moses has the spirit. And yet they are not equally authoritative. They are not equally prophetic. And God is very clear with Miriam and Aaron about that.

In the New Testament, that's the case too. There are degrees of prophetic authority. You all are prophets. I'm a prophet. We are all prophets, but we are under the great prophet, right? Moses shouldn't be questioned because he was clearly the chosen, anointed prophet to lead God's people for this time. Think of all the miracles, the way in which he was called. Mount Sinai, his glowing face. God attested to the fact that He had anointed Moses to lead His people more clearly and in more ways in the book of Exodus and Numbers than I could probably enumerate this morning.

So it should have been clear to Miriam and Aaron, even though they also were prophets, that God was working through Moses and doing something special. And in this moment when they questioned that, God was very clear with them that they should not have done that.

If we start thinking, brothers and sisters, that we are as authoritative or as prophetically powerful as our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, then we have a problem. And similarly, we have to respect the degrees of authority that He has placed within His church.

Reminder: this is not going to a place where I'm saying you cannot question your leaders. Let me give you an example of what I mean.

What We Don't Know

Let's talk about two things from this passage that we don't know. And let me talk to you about just how hard that is for me.

First of all, at the beginning of this passage, we get hit with this character: a Kushite wife. Who is this Kushite wife? Why are Miriam and Aaron so perplexed by this Kushite wife?

You know that meme—the picture of the guy with a bulletin board behind him with pegs and yarn, he's got a suit on, and he's just looking crazy? The conspiracy theory meme? That was me this week. I'm like, I'm gonna figure out who this Kushite wife is. I read just about every commentary I could find. I called other pastors. I listened to so many sermons. Somewhere around Thursday, I was starting to think that I was going to become like Elijah because I was pulling my hair out going, "I gotta figure out who the Kushite wife is." It's not clear who the Kushite wife is.

Moses had a wife, Zipporah, right, who was a Midianite. Most often, she's referred to as a Midianite, the daughter of Jethro. There are some scholars who think that occasionally, Midian is referred to as Kush. Could the Kushite wife be Zipporah? As I looked at it, it seems like a very, very, very weak argument that Kush would be used to apply to the place of Midian. More commonly, Kush is applied to referring to the land south of Egypt—aka Ethiopia.

Is the Kushite wife a second wife of Moses? Did Zipporah die? There's no mention of her death in the Bible. Did he remarry? Does he have two wives? And why are Miriam and Aaron upset about this? Is it because he's marrying outside of the nation of Israel? Well, wait a minute. If they're upset about that, first of all, if it's Zipporah, why did they wait this long to get upset about it?

Secondly, if it's not Zipporah, she was outside of the nation of Israel. So why did they wait this long to get upset about it? Is it a race thing? Is he marrying a dark-skinned woman from Ethiopia and they're upset about interracial marriage and the difference of their skin color? Or is that just me reading American situations into an ancient text? I don't know. Different scholars had all of those opinions.

Why is it that Miriam feels like she has to take things into her own hands? There are several suggestions about that. She thinks Moses may have violated God's law and she's concerned about God's statutes—like the marrying outside of Israel thing. Or maybe she's just envious of her brother. Or maybe she just doesn't like his new wife. Sometimes that happens with sisters. She's like, "I'm tired of this new woman who's got some clout because of my brother. No, I'm gonna exercise my authority." Or maybe it's the race thing. Maybe she's concerned that her brother is in over his head.

Remember, this is the woman that followed her little brother along the Nile, who was rooting for him her whole life. Maybe she saw in the previous chapter where he's like, "Just kill me, God. I can't lead these people anymore." Maybe she's like, "My brother needs my help. It's time for us to step in, Aaron."

I don't know. The text is not clear about any of that. All of those, in my opinion, are just as good hypotheses, but there's nothing in the text that clearly states what her motives were. There's nothing that clearly states what the issue is with the Kushite wife.

The Danger of Adding to Scripture

Here's my point. We could make the same mistake as Miriam and Aaron. I was tempted to make the same mistake as Miriam and Aaron and just go with my gut on this and say, "The prophecy that God has given me—with the things that are not clear as well as the things that are clear—is not enough. I need to step in. I need to add some color commentary. I need to explain this as though I know it, even though I don't."

I think oftentimes we do that with scripture. We come across things and we're not careful to admit, "I don't know."

Brothers and sisters, fellow prophets on this side of the new covenant, I would like to give you the grace and freedom of realizing that there is a greater prophet than you, and you do not have to know everything about what this says. What this says that is necessary for you to know, that has needed to be communicated to you for salvation, is abundantly clear. And you know that. You are a prophet. You can preach the gospel because of what you know from this. You do not have to have a master's of divinity. You do not have to be some sort of Greek or Hebrew scholar in order to get the message. You are a prophet, but you are not the prophet.

You have the freedom to look at passages in this text and say, "I don't know. I trust the one who does." In doing so, you are not making the mistake that Miriam and Aaron made, and you are trusting the prophet who is higher than you—the Lord Jesus Christ. Which is, in my opinion, the primary application of this text.

There are a couple things, however, that we can tell from this text beyond just that primary application. But first, going back to that primary application: the main thing to get from this is we are all under prophets, under Christ. He is the primary prophet. We should trust him. Do you hear that?

Authority Under Christ

Because now I'm gonna talk about the very messy reality of the degrees of prophetic authority that exist within this very room and the people who are bodily present in it. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where the rock tumbler starts grinding and where things are getting hard.

I'll tell you this right now: the guy who's standing up here talking about this passage is a sinner. And I'll tell you this right now: the people sitting next to you, including the one sitting in the chair you're in, are also sinners.

But here's the deal. The divine Lord, the sovereign God of the universe, designed and purposed for his people in Israel to be led by a sinner named Moses. And he designed and purposed for Moses to lead a sinful people named Israel. And he designed and purposed for us to all be in this mess together as well. And he is doing good things in that, despite the fact that we are often not doing good things.

So Christ has appointed lesser prophets to lead, and being against flawed human leaders in the church is wrong. Now, I'm gonna nuance that in just a minute. Don't panic. Being against flawed leaders in the church is wrong.

Notice that's how this passage starts out. Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses. They spoke against him. There's a question later but they begin by speaking against him. Being against your brothers and sisters in the Lord is wrong. And going about questioning them in the wrong way is also wrong. Notice that they do that as well. They don't go to Moses. They start talking amongst themselves. There's a little bit of like, let's team up on our brother. They don't go to the Lord until the Lord calls them to account. They're just talking trash against their little bro. They're throwing him under the bus. They're like, we have to take charge. He is—we are against him. Do you notice that? Again, the word "against" is different, right? Than the word "disagree" and it's different than the word "to." Like, if that word had been "Miriam and Aaron spoke to Moses because of the Cushite wife," that would be a very different beginning, right?

Now, there's a lot of heat on Miriam in this passage. I want to take some of that heat off, okay? Because I think that is one way you could read this, right? This is a very sexist text—it's going after the woman, okay? I want you to read this in the whole of the book of Numbers and Exodus. Miriam isn't the only one that's questioned Moses, okay? Like, you go through Numbers, there's a lot of people who question Moses. Notably, Aaron and Moses himself. Go back. This language of when the Lord kind of moves himself from in front of them and his anger burns against them. Do you know where that first appears with one of these siblings? It's at the burning bush when Moses is saying, "God, you can't speak through me. I'm slow of speech and tongue. I'm an idiot. You do not want me as a leader. I am a bad leader. Don't use me." So Miriam's not doing anything that Moses hasn't done already. And you know what that passage says? That God's reaction to Moses as he continued to insist that God could not use him—his anger burned against Moses. It's the same reaction.

Aaron, right? Aaron kind of waffles in the wind, man. Like, anytime—Moses is up at Mount Sinai, right? The people come to him and they're like, "We don't know what's happened to this man Moses. Why don't you make a golden calf?" And yeah, Aaron's like, "Yeah, my brother." Right? And what happens? The Lord's anger burns against Aaron. There's some very harsh consequences for Aaron in that passage. So it's not just Miriam. The issue is questioning whether or not the Lord can work through sinners. That's what he's doing. That is the issue.

Trusting God Through Flawed Leaders

Moses questioned that about himself. Aaron questioned that about his brother. Miriam questions that. And somehow, even in the messy midst of recognizing that we are sinners, that you are being led by sinners, you are expected to walk with a posture of expectation that God is going to use them somehow for your good even if they are sinning. Now, that doesn't mean you don't address it when they're sinning. That doesn't mean you don't address it when they're sinning. And that is where this is distinct from me saying, just trust me.

You know, there was a time and I'll just be honest—it's hard leading. I feel like Moses at the burning bush a lot of the time. I'm like, "Really God?" Like, if you've ever shown up here and you've looked up and saw who's preaching and you've gone, "Oh, really?" Don't worry, I grew up in the church so I know you have. It's fine. I do that every time I get up here. Really?

And I'll be honest. I love you guys. I've been in this church forever. You are like siblings to me. And when people leave this church and I get the sense that it's because of me, it's crushing. Crushingly hard. And it grinds. It feels like being in a rock tumbler and God has been working on me on that for years and years and years.

And I know because I have been in churches where leaders have let me down and I know some of you have been in churches where leaders have let you down. If you're not, you haven't—you're in one now. I know that hurts. I know that's painful and I'm not justifying any of the ways in which we let you down as leaders. It hurts. It's grinding. It's like being in a tumbler. And yet, God says, even though that's the case, we should trust Him. We should walk in this.

Obey your leaders and submit to them since they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. — Hebrews 13:17

There's two sides to that. There's the following side and the leading side. Both are done with this expectation of faith—like God's somehow gonna work through this. And we're gonna trust Him in it. And we're gonna be for each other in it.

I would suggest that if one day you hear something about me and you're like, "Yep, I knew it. There was something wrong with that guy"—just remember this day, because I'm telling you right now, there's something wrong with this guy. And maybe I'll have to step out of leadership. That might happen. I kind of think that very easily could happen. If that happens, would you please be for me and not against me?

I'm not saying you need to support me in leadership. I'm not saying that I should continue leading. But would you pray for me? Would you be for me? In the same way, know that if we have disagreements, if you leave this church—even if you leave without talking to me, even if you've hurt me as you lead—I want you to know that I'm gonna be for you. I'm gonna pray for you. Even as hard as it might be, I might be mad. Would you be for me?

So that's what this passage is really saying. That's what it's about. And there are right and wrong ways to question leaders or be questioned as leaders. So I just really quickly want to run through some of that.

How Followers Should Question Their Leaders

Miriam and Aaron did it wrong here. They question to each other. They don't approach Moses, and they fail to bring any of this to the Lord. When you're a follower, there is a right way to question your leaders.

The first thing you should do is approach God directly and expect him to ultimately do what's needed. You need to pray for your leaders. The Bible's clear about that—pray for them, not against them. It may be the best thing for them to get out of leadership. So that's fine. But be for them in your prayer.

Go to God directly. Wouldn't it have been nice if Miriam—I'm speculating, I don't know why she did this—but if she'd gone to God and said, "God, my brother seems over his head. Will you help him? Or God, my brother seems out of line. Will you correct him?" That would have been the right thing to do.

You also need to not fear them, but you should fear God. You should go expecting to be reverent and respectful of the position that God has placed them in. That's how you are respectful to God. But you don't fear them, and there's nothing to be afraid of with me. Let me tell you, if you ever get the sense like, "I'm afraid of James Sutton," let's go get coffee. Or better yet, get coffee with Katie.

Approach them directly. Instead of speaking against them, speak to them. Go and reclaim. Expect that the redemptive power of the gospel could be applied to your leaders and that God could reclaim them. Try to be as suspicious of yourself as you are of them. You might not have all of the information that they have. So try to approach them with some humility and some curiosity, wondering what is going on.

There are some better illustrations in Scripture of how to be a follower who questions your imperfect leader. David and Saul. David is incredibly respectful to Saul, even though Saul's trying to kill him. Saul is nuts. He is nuts. He needed to be taken out of leadership. But God did that, and David pursued God for that.

The best example—better even than David—is Christ and Satan. When Christ comes into this world, there's a leader in this world, and it's not him. But he submitted to death on a cross, and God raised him up and gave him dominion over the world and over Satan because of it. Do you see?

How Leaders Should Be Questioned

I'm also gonna make these points about how leaders should respond, because I'm aware of the fact that in this room are not just followers—there's leaders. In fact, all of you are leaders in some way.

Moses is a good example here. He provides us with a bad example in Numbers chapter 20, in case you're wondering. We'll get to that in a few weeks when he feels like he has to defend himself.

"You rebels, must we bring water out of this rock?" — Numbers 20

That's bad. This is good. He doesn't get defensive. He's not trying to defend himself. He simply waits upon the Lord.

So when you're a leader, there's a right way to be questioned. Don't fear the questions. You don't have to be perfect. I think that's where it starts for us leaders. When somebody comes questioning us, we're like, "Oh gosh, I messed up. I must control the narrative. I must control." Fear leads to control. I have to control this. You don't have to fear the questions.

Listen, if you have a question that gets me out of leadership, please come and ask it. It's not easy being a leader. I'm not afraid of your questions. I'm not afraid of you. In fact, I have found that God has more than anything led me by way of you than any other way. People talk about that all the time. Bethany was just up here talking about that. Did you notice that? God called me into leadership, and through that, he has led me to himself by working with these followers.

I'm not afraid of your questions, bring it on gently. Don't fear the questions, you don't have to be perfect, just listen. Be more suspicious of yourself than you are of the people asking questions. God probably put you in charge because you're weaker than they are. Have you noticed that in scripture? It's the little brother who's in charge, the weakest. That's true throughout scripture, right? David is the youngest brother. It's always this unexpected thing, like God elevates to leadership someone who in and of themselves, well, it sure wasn't that James Sutton, it had to be Jesus. Right?

So when you come, know that that's the posture I'm in or trying to be in, and that's the posture you should be in when people question you and your leadership. You're probably in charge because you're the weakest and these followers have something to offer you. If you must speak, speak to them, not against them and approach God directly and expect him to do ultimately what's needed. Pray and intercede for them.

Moses is a good example here. A better example is Jesus, right? Who prays and intercedes for his followers, all of us, you know, had a hand in nailing him to the cross. Imagine the pain Moses must have felt by being questioned by his siblings. That's nothing compared to what Jesus felt when he was dying for our sins. And yet, the great prophet who knew everything said:

Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

He prayed for and interceded for those who wronged him. That's how you lead. That's how you follow in the wilderness. That's how you exist in this rock tumbler.

Grace in the Wilderness

But I want to leave you with one final thing. Remember there is grace. The wilderness is for a time. Imperfect followers and imperfect leaders are just what we experience here. We have a picture of where we are going by our great leader, our great prophet, Jesus Christ. He is the perfect human leader and he will be our perfect human leader for all time and forever. And he's taking us to a promised land where we will be perfect followers and perfect leaders.

We'll rule and reign alongside of him for eternity. We're going to cast our crowns at his feet. He's the ultimate leader. We will be followers as well as leaders. But we will be perfected. Imagine what it'll be like to be those polished rocks in heaven for eternity, rejoicing in the unity that God has achieved for us.

As we walk through this life and our rough edges rub against each other, remember that our perfect leader is already there and he's interceding for us just like Moses interceded for his sister. While there may be consequences for our sin for a time, God is taking us to a place where we will all be forgiven and perfected for eternity.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Lord Jesus, we rejoice that you are a perfect leader, that we don't have to depend on human leaders. Lord, we rejoice that even though we are not perfect, you call us into this family business of redemption that you're doing. Lord, we rejoice that we don't have to be perfect leaders to participate, that you perfect us through this process. And Lord, even in our flawed weakness you use us. Lord, there's a sense in which the beauty of what you're going to do is working backwards into what you are doing now.

So, Lord, as we wander through the wilderness, help us to see with the eyes of Caleb where you're taking us, and rejoice not just in the destination, but also the journey as we walk alongside of one another under you. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.