In The Wilderness: Just How Important Are You, Pastor?

But thanks for humoring us. We're going to turn our attention to Numbers chapter 20 verses one through 13, and it's our habit of reading God's word aloud together. So you can find that on the screen or in your bulletin. Would you join your voices with mine?

The entire Israelite community entered the wilderness of Zin in the first month, and they settled in Kadesh. Miriam died and was buried there. There was no water for the community, so they assembled against Moses and Aaron. The people quarreled with Moses and said, if only we have perished when our brothers perished before the Lord. Why have you brought this Lord's assembly into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die here? Why have you led us up from Egypt to bring us to this evil place? It's not a place of grain, figs, vines, and pomegranates, and there is no water to drink. Then Moses and Aaron went from the presence from the to the doorway of the tent of meeting. They fell face down, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. The Lord spoke to Moses. Take the staff and assemble the community. You and your brother Aaron are to speak to the rock while they watch, and it will yield its water. You will bring out water for them from the rock and provide for the community and their livestock. So Moses took the staff from the Lord's presence just as he had commanded him. Moses and Aaron summoned the assembly in front of the rock, and Moses said to them, listen, you rebels. Must we bring water out of this rock for you? Then Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with his staff so that the abundant water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank. But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, because you did not trust me to demonstrate my holiness in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this assembly into the land I have given them. These are the waters of Meribah where the Israelites quarreled with the Lord, and he demonstrated his holiness to them. — Numbers 20:1-13

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Have you ever heard of the phrase snatching victory from the jaws of defeat? That's a sports phrase. It's used to describe an underdog team that is outfunded and probably out trained and has less talent than a vastly superior team, and yet they come out of nowhere to win. It's been used for all kinds of teams. Most notably, you can think of Miracle on Ice, the 1980 US hockey team that played a Russian team that was all professionals. The US team was all college hockey players, and it goes all odds, right? They overcame and won four to three to win the gold medal.

Another example would be a team here maybe in this town that won in 1983 in the NCAA tournament against Houston, a team known as Phi Slamajama that included future stars like Hakim Olajuwon and Clyde Drexel, and went on to win the 1983 championship. Or 2003 where there's this little team at a school up in Boone, North Carolina—a couple of y'all maybe?—that beat the number five ranked team in football, the Michigan Wolverines. Or so many other teams like this. We can talk about Buster Douglas beats Mike Tyson, Villanova defeats Georgetown in the nineteen eighty five NCAA tournament, and so on. You can fill this in. Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

And I want you to think about that phrase because nobody uses it the other way. Nobody says snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. And yet that's what we see in this passage. That's actually what this whole passage is about—snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. It's one of the saddest moments in all of the Old Testament because here we're on the brink of the promised land. God has delivered his people from Egypt. He's brought them to the base of Mount Sinai. They've gotten the Ten Commandments. He's brought them now to the very brink, the second time around, of the promised land and something happens here where Moses is not allowed to go in.

Now, people, Moses—y'all won't get it. In Deuteronomy, it says this about Moses:

No prophet has arisen in Israel again like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. — Deuteronomy 34:10

Now, of course, Moses was an amazing leader, but that's not the big shock of this. It's that no one has known God in the Old Testament like Moses face to face. In that little phrase is such intimacy and such closeness. Moses truly could say, God is my friend. And now Moses isn't allowed in. This is so personal. This isn't Moses being like, "Oh, I can't cross one thing off my bucket list. Skydiving, entering the promised land—I guess I can't do that one." This is so much more serious and so much more sad. This is truly Moses snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory.

And I want to ask, as we look at this passage today, what happened? How did the wheels fall off this badly?

And in particular to our congregation, this is a really important passage for this moment. Last week, we commissioned a deaconess. Today, we're ordaining an elder and three deacons and when we think about church leadership and we think about the local church, this passage has so much for us to learn and to think about with regard to leadership and how leadership functions among God's people.

Now, if you are a good Israelite and you're reading this in the Torah, you immediately know this isn't one event but two. This is actually a hyperlink back to another event that happened years before. You have this tremendous sense of deja vu because of this. So the Hebrew passages are made to make us feel that way and call to mind an event that happened back in Exodus chapter 17.

So notice the location that you read has two names. Did you notice this? In the first part of the passage, we read that it's called Kadesh. But at the end of the passage, it says, these are the waters of Meribah. Meribah means quarreling. And if you're reading through the book of Exodus, you're like, I know what you're talking about because Meribah is used back in Exodus 17 and refers to another event where the Israelites were arguing with the Lord about a lack of water. And again, they're quarreling with God at a different place called Rephidim. So quarreling then, Meribah then, Meribah now.

What is that about? What that's about is that there is a forty year expansive time that happens between Numbers 19 and Numbers 20. This is a different group of people. These are the children of the people who argued with God at the first Meribah back at Rephidim in Exodus 17. This is the next generation. This is the next generation that's arguing with Moses and Aaron about exactly the same thing: we're thirsty.

Then we saw in verse one that Miriam, Moses' sister had died. And this is what's happening now throughout this whole group of people. The older generation is dying. This is the next generation. So here we are again, exact same situation, no water for the camp. And I want you to remember the context for this because this is not like running out of water on a hike at Umstead Park. This is not like running out of water when you're in line at Disney, waiting for a ride. This is you're in a desert, and this is not just a problem. I'm not just thirsty. This is a dire situation.

You know, one of these days, I'm going to go to The Holy Land. I've been listening to a podcast by this one teacher who takes groups every other year to The Holy Land, and he always purposely takes them in August. And they go hike in the Sinai Desert on purpose to experience the Sinai Desert. It is 120 degrees in the shade in August in the Sinai Desert. Now I know some of you are like, well, it's a dry heat. I'm sorry. I don't care. 120 is 120. It's brutal. And so running out of water is not just like, oh, that's so annoying. This is life threatening, and the people are crying out. It's a dire situation.

So here's the question before this next generation. Same question that was before their parents. Will you trust the Lord? Will He provide? Will He be your sustainer? Will He be your sustenance? Can you trust God to quench your thirst?

And this is one of those passages in the Bible where tons of ink has been spilled over the question of why Moses of all people wasn't allowed to enter into the promised land. There's been lots of debates and thoughts and maybe if you've heard this preached before, this is the normal take on this. As you look in the New Testament and you read over and you're like, oh, First Corinthians 10 refers to this whole thing. It says the rock that they drank from was Christ. And so here's how the sermon usually goes: Moses struck the rock twice instead of once. And that was like recrucifying Jesus. And that was really bad. And I'm like, I don't know. That seems really complex. Moses didn't get to go in the promised land because he got the symbolism wrong? Did Moses know who Jesus was? He could maybe anticipate somebody was coming. I just don't think Moses wasn't allowed in for messing up symbolism. I think it's much more simple than this.

Leadership: Pitfalls, Tools, and Limits

So here's where we're going this morning. We're talking all about leadership and the Lord and His people. So, the pitfalls of leadership, the tools of leadership, and the limits of leadership.

So let's look at the pitfalls first. Pitfalls, tools, limits. This passage demonstrates what is a very common pitfall of leadership both for leaders and followers among God's people. I want you to look at this with me. We're going to see this first with the people and then with Moses.

First, this problem with the people. Remember, this is the second generation and they're different from their parents. The parents' generation kept arguing with Moses and Aaron.

We saw this last week as we saw the rebellion of Korah because they thought too little of Moses and Aaron. The second generation by contrast thinks way too much of Moses and Aaron. They're looking to Moses to supply for them. What do they say here? Moses, you give us water. They're looking to Moses as their rock. They think Moses can be their source. They think Moses can be their provider and congregations do this today. This happens all the time. They look to their pastors: be our sustenance, be our source. Pastor, you can do it.

This is evident to me in the way people talk about churches in the South. This is weird. This is not the way that people talk about churches in other parts of the country, places I've served. People refer to churches by their pastor. Now I'm a good friend with John Yates, who's the rector at Holy Trinity. And people will say, "Oh, I go to John Yates church." People, that is not John Yates church. I know that. I know John. That's not his church. Or my good friend Dan up at Redeemer Presbyterian Church way up in North Raleigh, people say "I go to Dan's church." That is not Dan's church. "Oh, I go to Jeff Bradford Church." Don't you do that to me. This is not my church. I don't know if you know this—news flash—but I work here. I don't own this place and it's not mine. And doing that means we put way too much credit and way too much responsibility on pastors.

When congregations and churches do that, they lose. We often seek to quench our thirst on things besides Jesus. Now, we talk about this all the time in our church. This is idolatry. We say things like hobbies can't satisfy you. Your career can't satisfy you. Friendship can't satisfy you. Marriage was not meant to bear this weight. Kids can't satisfy you. This is not going to work. But you can do that with a church too. And you can do that with a pastor.

The American church loves to make celebrities out of their pastors. Maybe somebody really ministers to you and that's great, and I'm glad that's the case. But you make the pastor too important. I sometimes think that faithful pastoral ministry is learning to disappoint the right people at the right rate over the right time. I'm not kidding. I'm always apologizing. Present over perfect. I'm not the source. No leader is the source and we need to look to the real source—to Christ.

If you do that, then what you are bothered about and what you're burdened with will get solved. It will get met. Only Jesus can satisfy our thirsts and our hungers and our needs and our guilt and our shame and our sorrows and our anger. Only when we go to him can we stop running around and doing lots of things. It's Christ alone, and him alone, that can fill you so you don't have to fill yourself or look for me to do that or somebody else.

The Confusion of Leadership and Source

When we confuse leadership with the source, we become confused. You can see this in this passage. In verse three it says they were quarreling with Moses, but later on we see at the end of the passage that they were quarreling with God. You hear the confusion? That's what happens when we confuse those things. We confuse who we're actually quarreling with.

Here's the problem: not just congregations do this, but leaders do this. Moses had done the same thing. Moses has the same problem as the people in this passage. You don't have to look really far to figure out Moses's sin in this passage—it's right there in his words. His sin is the same as the people's sins, only in his position, it's much worse.

Look at verse 10. The sin is exposed beneath his words. When people complain about a lack of water, notice the pronouns. What he says is:

Shall we bring water from the rock to you?

"We?" It's always been God. It's always been the Lord. He thinks he's the source. He thinks he's what the people need. Contrast this with what God says about what happens in verse 12:

You didn't sanctify me. You didn't honor me. You didn't lift me up as the source. You made it about you.

Moses is doing exactly the same thing that the people are doing. You may not think that's a big deal. That's a big deal, especially if you're in leadership.

Moses doesn't always act this way. I mean, we see lots of parts throughout this whole story of Exodus and Numbers where Moses rightly remembers who he is and who God is. In his better moments, he knows he can't be their rock. Can I tell you, can I be really honest with you? I get confused on this too. This is one of the things that's really exhausting about pastoral ministry. I forget. God's the rock. God's the source.

You know, on this Sunday and last, when we commission a deaconess, when we ordain an elder and three deacons, it's really important for our leaders to remember the words of John the Baptist. I must decrease so that he may increase.

Now, if you're sitting here this morning and you're not a Christian, maybe you're a guest here to support one of your friends who's being ordained, you may struggle with what it says here in verse 12. This whole "you didn't sanctify me" thing that God says to Moses. I mean, Moses, you didn't honor me or lift me up—and you might be thinking, honestly, this is why I don't like church and God, because God seems just so insecure all the time. It's about me. Make it about me. God got to be emotionally needy. You know, worship me.

And if you are struggling with that, good job. You got the point, because it's gotta be about him and he's gotta be the center. He's gotta be the source. He has to be the center.

Now, a friend of mine in Pennsylvania—I'm stealing this from him—he says it this way. He said, what do we call food egotistical because your body needs it every day? What do we call water egotistical because you need it to survive? What do we call the air we breathe egotistical because it's essential for life? No, of course not. Those are basic needs, and fundamentally this is what humans are hardwired for—God. God in the center.

You know, it is not egotistical for God to be our source and our greatest need and our greatest hope. He's got to be in the center. God's not in the center, we starve, we languish, we die. That's what's so damaging. Moses is taking the place of God.

What happens to leaders when this happens? I mean, doesn't Moses seem kind of burned out in this passage? Seems kind of burned out to me. You know, he gets very isolated, very lonely. It's lonely being God, especially when you're not a Trinity. Come on, that's a good one. That's the pitfalls of leadership.

The Tools of Leadership

What are the tools of leadership? We see this in this passage. This is fascinating. What I've been speaking about, we've talked about this book—it's a pair. It's a pair with another book of the Torah. Numbers and Exodus go together. They're mirrors of one another. The Torah is like a big sandwich with the meat in the middle. That's Leviticus. The bread on the outside, that's Genesis and Deuteronomy, and then the condiments, which are Exodus and Numbers. They pair with one another.

So the book of Exodus is about God rescuing his people out of slavery in Egypt, getting his people out of Egypt. Numbers is about God getting Egypt out of his people, right? He's detoxing them from a culture of Egypt.

And in this one area we haven't explored with this is the tools of leadership. Now, one of the things that's repeated throughout this passage over and over and over—gets referred to verse eight, verse nine, verse 11—is the staff. And I just want to make sure we're all talking about the same thing, because in churches, staff means like the people who work for the church. So Moses doesn't take his children's director and beat the rock with it. That's not what's going on here. It's a wooden stick. Everybody on the same page? Wooden stick, rod, stick, whatever you want to call it, right? This is the tool of leadership.

And this is repeated throughout the book of Exodus and Numbers. Moses always seems to have this walking stick, this staff with him. At the burning bush, when God calls Moses, He says, take the staff in your hand. You want to know what I'm telling you the truth—take the staff, throw it on the ground and it turns into a snake, pick it up by the tail and it turns back into a staff. And Moses repeats this trick at God's command first in front of the elders of Israel to authenticate his ministry, then in front of Pharaoh to show Pharaoh that he is God's person, right?

He does so and uses this staff actually in carrying out five of the plagues of Egypt. So he strikes the Nile, it turns to blood, brings about the infestation of frogs and vermin. It unleashes the plagues of hail and locusts—all with the staff. Moses splits the Red Sea with his staff.

We see Moses in Exodus 17—he strikes the rock at God's command. God tells him to, water comes out. They're fighting against this other army, against the Amalekites, and Moses raises up the staff. And every time he lowers it, they start losing. Every time he raises it, they start winning. So Aaron props up his arm. You remember this story?

So all this is happening. And again, here, God says, take your staff. Did you notice that? Take your staff. You're going to go down to the rock, but you're not going to use it. How is Moses supposed to get water from the rock this time? Speak to the rock, speak to the rock. Use his voice, not his staff.

Now one commentator, Marty Solomon, is really helpful here.

He says the staff—that's the way of Egyptian power. That's how Pharaoh understood and wielded power. If you look at images of the pharaohs, they have this in their hands. It's called the Hecca and Nehaqa—the crook and the flail. And they were symbols throughout Egyptian art. You can see it here. Here's King Tut. He's got them in his hands.

God condescends in the context of Egypt, in the context of the Exodus, to help Moses communicate power using a staff. This is why God told Moses to carry it, to use it as an image of His power. It communicated something both to Pharaoh and to the elders of Israel, the Hebrew slaves. It's why it was a symbol of leadership for Moses.

But the staff is also a relic of Egypt. It's a way that Egypt does power—by command and control, by force, by forcing people to submission by wielding power. Pharaoh used his crook and his staff on the people, not to protect, but to subdue, to control, to beat them into submission. This is not the way of the Lord.

The way of the Lord is that God leads His people and teaches Moses to lead His people by speaking, using his voice over and over again. This is the refrain in Exodus and Numbers: "Speak these words to the people."

Even our twenty-third Psalm, where it says:

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. — Psalm 23

This is not the same as a crook and flail. This is a shepherd's staff. The crook part was used to rescue a sheep from danger. The hard end at the bottom was used to drive off enemies. It was for protection.

Even today, if you go to the Middle East and watch Bedouin shepherds, they do not lead with a staff. They lead with their voice. They speak to the sheep. They sing to the sheep. They carry a staff for wild animals, for protection, but they lead with their voice. This is the way of the Lord—using your voice to lead with your voice.

Over all these years, God has been less and less commanding Moses to use the staff and more and more to speak. Remember what was Moses's greatest objection to being in leadership at all at the very beginning?

I am not strong of speech.

So God says, "Okay, I'm gonna give you a staff." It connects. But over time, God is teaching him to speak. And this is what happens here at Numbers 20. We've gone through all these years of God forming and shaping Moses in leadership. Forty years of leading God's people and teaching Moses how to speak. And here's the big test: Will Moses lead with his voice or with the tools of Egypt?

What does Moses do? It's heartbreaking. He loses control. He shouts at the people. He gets angry.

Listen, you rebels. Must we bring water out of this rock for you?

After all these years, what does it show us? Has God gotten Egypt out of Moses yet? Nope, not yet. Moses is still, like all of us, using the tools of Egypt. He's resorting to power, not his voice. This is the kind of leadership that God is trying to take out of him. And this is why Moses doesn't go into the promised land.

Here's the thing for all human leaders of God's people to remember: We lead with our voice. That's the way of the Lord.

The Limits of Leadership

One more thing about the staff, and I want you to think about this. This is not Harry Potter's wand, right? It doesn't have a magical feather or anything. A Phoenix feather, right? He doesn't have a magical phoenix feather inside the staff, right? There's nothing about the staff. It's a stick, y'all. It's just a big stick.

And at the end of the day, Moses is just like that, right? He's just the same. An ordinary guy puts on his robe one leg at a time. That was also a joke. Come on, y'all. Slow this morning. Really slow. Too many pancakes downstairs, right? Am I right?

This is what makes all human leaders—we all need to remember, especially among God's people: just a stick. Nothing special.

What's special is speaking God's words at the right time in the right way to God's people. Every time you pray for someone, you pull out God's word and you encourage someone. You read God's word with someone. Every time a normal member in our church does this—we invite you to serve the Lord's Supper with us, right? I'll say the words of institution and many times those upfront will repeat those to people coming upfront. That's where the power is. That's what really matters is God's word. God's word being spoken through his people to one another.

Not the stick, but the Creator of sticks.

You know, the body of Christ, any manifestation of God's people, any local church is in many ways like your physical body. Scientists tell us that the human body replaces damaged cells within your body over time. Some parts of your body, it's really fast and other parts it takes longer. But what that means is that in many ways, even though you're the same you that you were ten years ago, you're not the same you physically. You're made up of cells that have been replaced. And though you look like you, you're made up of things that have been replaced—all these trillions of cells.

And the same is true of the church. The same is true of the church. Even this manifestation, this local body of the church, which I've served for—it'll be twelve years at Easter—it's not the same people. The individual cells are different than they were twelve years ago. People are coming, people are leaving. We consider it really an important part of our ministry as a church to send people out. We say we send our best. We've sent out three daughter churches now. We think it's really important.

So this is why I've titled the sermon: "Just how important do you think you are, pastor?" Because nobody in this church is essential to the body of Christ. Nobody is essential to Christ the King Presbyterian Church. One day you will be gone from the church, and one day I will be gone from the church. I pray this church goes on way past me and my time here.

There's a quote from Nicholas Ludwig, I think it's attributed to him—Count Zinzendorf. That's important to remember. I think about this regularly as a pastor. Here's a pastoral vision: Preach the gospel, die, be forgotten. Now that may sound really stark, but I think that's actually not bad. Preach the gospel, die, be forgotten.

If you love this church, I want to ask you to pray for our church and for the leaders of our church. I want you to pray for our congregation—that our congregation would always remember who is the source, who is the center, who's most important here. I want you to pray for our congregation to celebrate and prize the power of God, not the sticks, not the individual sticks.

I want to ask you to pray for your leaders—that we would remember that He's the source. That God has never asked us to be the sustenance or the provider or the power. The only thing we could do is point to Jesus. I want to ask you to pray for your leaders that we would remember to lead with our voice gently. We pray for the plurality of our leadership. It's one of the great things about Presbyterian form of government. I get one vote on our leadership board, and I can be outvoted, and that's healthy. In the end, it is Jesus' church. Would you pray that we always remember that it's Jesus' church?

God's Love on Display

By way of conclusion, I want to point you to something really beautiful at the end of this passage: God's love for His people on display. God's love for the congregation and His love for Moses.

Look at the love for the people. Notice how God loves His people. What actually happens in this passage? People cry out to God for water. God provides water. In fact, I don't even know if the people were aware of what happens in verses twelve and thirteen—this conversation where God says to Moses, "You can't go in. Aaron, you're not going to go in." I don't even know if they knew that. What happens? The people cry out and God provides.

You know what's amazing? God continues to provide water for His people just like in Numbers 20, in our church. Despite all the incredible failures and weaknesses of the local church and local church leaders—and I know over the last few years it has been front page headlines, all the failures of the church—and I get it when people are cynical and worn out and like, "I don't know if I can keep doing this church thing." Boy, of all people in this room, let me tell you, it is hard to be a pastor sometimes. I'm like, I'm not sure. I don't know how I feel about this. But you know what's amazing? God continues to supply water for His people through the institution of the local church. He's not done with it. He's not like, "Wow, I read all the headlines. I guess we're done."

And yet, also look what we see here: the love of God for Moses. And some of you are like, "Moses? Really? Moses didn't get to cross off the bucket list. What are you talking about, pastor?" Look, God snatches Moses from the jaws of defeat. He rescues Moses from himself. He says, "You know, you've forgotten the source, and so I'm not going to let you go in." Why? To rescue Moses. Because He loves Moses. Moses is too important to God to allow Moses to go into the Promised Land even under the wrong terms. So beautiful. So beautiful.

Brothers and sisters, look, I know that the local church is difficult. I know it's pretty.

The local church isn't pretty and it will disappoint you over and over. That's because the body of Christ is not the head. This is his creation, not his incarnation. This is his workmanship. It's not the worker himself. It's the sheep. It's not the shepherd.

God loves the church. The church is like no other human institution. It's not a club. It's not a political party. It's not a fraternity or sorority. It's not a business. It's God's eternal, infinite people imbued with his own spirit—supernatural, gloriously flawed, yet incredibly loved. And God works through this.

Let's put him back where he belongs. This morning, let's put him back where he belongs at the center. At the very center.

Prayer

Would you pray with me? Father, we thank you for your word. There's nothing like your word and it cuts through and speaks to the hardest places. Father, we confess that this is hard for us. Thinking about the local church is hard for us.

We pray, Father, this morning that you would meet us. We thank you for the provision of your spirit. We pray that Jesus would be the center, the sustenance, and the source for our congregation. And we'd never forget that.

We pray these things in the name of Jesus, our savior. Amen.

Let's respond to God's word in song together. Would you stand with me?