God's Leadership and Transition

I think everybody's through praying, aren't you? Joshua chapter 3, and I'm going to start with verse 5. I kind of talked about that last week, but I want to step back and start over again to start through here. When I was a kid growing up, I heard guys talk all the time, a lot of times, about a phrase, you don't change horses in the middle of a stream. They were talking about the fact that when you're trying to cross a stream with a wagon, and you got out in the middle of the stream and it was flooding, and you had hard trouble getting across, it was not a good time to stop your horses, unhook them, lead them to the other side, and try to get two more to come back out and hook onto your wagon. The water would wash your gravel in Arkansas away from the tires, and your wagon would sink down in the ground, in the water, in the mud, and besides, it's awful hard to hook those horses up, and it's just better to stick with one. I've heard that a lot of times when they talk about changing a military commander in the middle of the war. I've heard them talk about it whenever there's a crisis and there's leadership in any place, not to change leadership, to stay with the leadership that you have. In this story in the Bible, God violates that sort of human principle. He had Moses, which was a great leader for the people of Israel for a long time. Over 40 years, we know. And then when it came time for them to finish this journey to the promised land, he abruptly changed leadership. He said to Moses, you can't go into the promised land. And so Moses had to stop his leadership, and he appointed someone else brand new. When they got to the place where the hard fighting was going to start, he changed leaders. Now the people of Israel had grown accustomed to Moses. They knew what he was like. They knew his character. They knew his nature. They knew how he handled himself under pressure and took difficult spots. They knew that he knew how to talk to God and get a response back from God. And now when they were faced with one of the biggest crises or biggest battles of their life, they now have someone who is untested and unproven, either in his spiritual abilities or his leadership abilities. And now God says, here's a new person. That's a difficult role for someone to be in, because people are inclined to see the new leader in terms of what the old leader looked like and what he did and how he thought. And it's a big issue for churches too. I've had a lot of people over the years that say, you shouldn't stay at this church in Great Bend so long, because when you stay there such a long time and you leave, it's going to be really difficult for the next person to come in and lead, because everybody will remember how Doyle thought and what Doyle said and what Doyle was doing. And so it's kind of a hard thing. People encourage me to take another church or to take another job so that this wouldn't be so hard on you whenever God said, I'm through with you and I'm either taken to the promised land or to some other place. So you think, well, you know, what do you do? But in reading the Scriptures, I came to think, you know, that's true. It's hard to change horses in the middle of a stream. And a lot of times whenever you have a leader in a position for a long time, it's really hard on the person that follows, and especially true in churches. A lot of times the person that follows someone that stayed a long time, their tenure doesn't last very long, because people keep remembering what the former pastor did and said, and it makes it hard for the new man to come in and stay there. But you know, if God has asked someone to do something, and he says to me, you know, I want you to stay here, I've kind of taken confidence or consolation in the idea that God knows what he's doing. Now, here's a pattern where God deals with exactly this situation. It's a man who had been a leader for Israel for a long, long time, and he says, I want you to stop. And then he said, here is a new leader. And shows how the transition is made from one person to another. So he gives us a picture of how God handles transitions in leadership. God is intending to fulfill the promise he's made. I'm going to lead you into the promised land. Now, he's been making this promise for hundreds of years. And now when he comes to the very place where it's getting ready to be fulfilled, he changes his leadership, which in human terms is the worst thing you could do. God doesn't always operate the way human beings think we should. He just has his own way of doing things. And one of the things that God is trying to show us is that the way he does things is not always the way we think they should be done, but he has a way to make every single one of them work right. And in this story, he gives us a picture about what takes place, beginning with verse 5, Then Joshua told the people, Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you. What God needed in the beginning was to be able to make sure that his people were focused on one thing. Consecrate yourself. Get out of your mind and your heart everything that detracts you from doing exactly what I want you to do. And what is it that makes it hard for a transition in leadership? Well, it's because people say, Well, we know how Moses did things, and so we want everything to happen exactly like Moses did. And when they do that, they're taking their eye off of following God to following Moses. Whenever there's a change in leadership and people say, Well, we've always done things this way, they take their eye off of God and they focus it on their tradition, the way things have always been done. In either one of those instances, whether the leadership has been great, or whether their policies and procedures have been great, they're no substitute for God. And anytime the people of God fail to look at God for the final source and authority for everything they do, chaos always ensues. And so he's saying to the people, I want you to get together and reflect on anything in your life that is keeping you from focusing everything on me. And whenever you have everything focused on me, then we'll be ready to take the next step in what's taking place in my plan. So the people of God are taking their eyes off of human leadership, they're taking their eyes off of their human tradition, they're taking their eyes off of their own desires. This is the way I want it to take place. You see, tradition, human leadership, and my own idea of what I want always causes conflict. So much of the conflict in churches about music is the result of people saying, This is what I like. And whenever you start talking about this is what I like, you're going to come up with all kinds of ideas. If we were to start around here saying, I'd like everyone to name their favorite food. And then we're going to have that food for our Wednesday night meal. We'd have all kinds of different favorites. And if you were to say, I am not going to come to this Wednesday night meal because they didn't pick my favorite food, we have chaos. Well, that's kind of what people do with music. I like this kind of music and I'm not going to come to church or sing unless they sing my kind of music. The songs I like, the tempo I like, the style I like. All of these make it impossible for God to lead His people in unanimity to achieve what He wants to achieve. So what He asked was, In the beginning, I want you to free yourself from any of your previous thoughts about the tradition or your leadership or your own personal desires and get ready to listen to only what I tell you. You know, this shouldn't be hard for us really because it's the way you become a Christian. You begin your Christian life by saying, God, it's not what I want. It's not my plan. It's not the things I've decided. I will follow you no matter what. Anywhere you lead me, whatever you ask of me, I will do it in obedience to you. That's the nature of the Christian life. All this other stuff, tradition, human leadership, or my own personal preferences, are all sinful things. Let me say that again. To be hooked on Moses was a sinful thing. Wasn't it? Moses was a bad guy. But Moses was never the one who actually led them. And to be hooked on Moses is idolatry. To be hooked on what I want is idolatry. To be hooked on the tradition of the church is idolatry. Idolatry is letting something control your spiritual life and behavior apart from God. So what God was asking of them was to get rid of all the idols in your life. I can't lead you if you have those. I can't lead you if there are other things that attract your attention and your will. And so the church, or the people of God, to be able to find themselves through leadership changes, must be prepared to say, God, we've erased everything in the past and it's a blank sheet here. It's a blank sheet. We're not going to hang on to the things that are behind us. But now the things that are ahead of us, we're open to do whatever you want us to do. It is the only way that a Christian can lead his life. It's the only way a church can do what it ought to do. And it's the only way that God is free to be able to take leadership in a church any way He wants to. Then Joshua said to the priest, verse 6, Take up the ark of the covenant and cross over ahead of the people. So they took it up and went ahead of them. He gave them, and then God gave Joshua, simply one thing to tell the priest. Joshua was a leader, the priests were leaders, but He only told them one thing to do. In God's plan, He always does this to us. And it's sort of irritating, really. God never tells us the whole picture of what this is about. He tells us just the step that we need to take. Now, the first thing you do, Joshua, is tell the priest to go down in the water, take the ark of the covenant, and to go on ahead. Cross over ahead of the people. Now, if you're following this and you're the priest, your natural human reaction is to say, you mean you want the priest to all walk across the river into enemy territory without any soldiers? Why do you want us to do this? Isn't this dangerous, God? I think, God, it would be better if the soldiers went over first, and then we carried this ark over, because we have no defense for ourselves. You see, sometimes God asks us to do things that our human reasoning just don't sound right. And we don't know what His next step is. So when you don't know the next step and what God intends to do, when He gives you some kind of direction, it oftentimes seems foolish. It oftentimes seems dangerous. It oftentimes seems faulty. But what God's teaching the people, I want you to listen to me, consecrate yourself, you listen to me, and I will tell you one step at a time what I want you to do. He never told them what was going to happen in the future. If God were to tell us, tell the priest here, I want you to cross over the Jordan, and when you do, I'm going to part the water, so everything will be okay. They would say, oh, now I get it, we're willing to do it. That's not, again, an act of faith. Because you know what's going to happen. God constantly is in the process in the life of His people in leading us to do things for only one reason. God said, do it. And I trust Him so much that even though I don't understand or know, I am willing to do what He asks. This walk of faith is a very difficult thing to do. This walk of faith is always hard because of our human mind and heart. But it is impossible for God to do His work apart from this. In every step of our life, in the way of individuals or as a church, He's always asking us to do something that requires us to trust Him apart from what we can understand or see or know. And that's what He did. And the Lord said to Joshua, Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all of Israel, so they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses. The second thing that God does now in dealing with Joshua is to say to Joshua, I will exalt you. You know what the big problem whenever you have changes in leadership are? You have someone that comes in to be a leader of a group and that person feels like, now I'm the leader of this group and I have to show that I can do the job. There's tremendous pressure on you. I have to excel. I have to come in here and show this church that I can lead them. I have to have ideas. I have to have vision. Now that's a big thing, you know, in Southern Baptist life is a pastor casts a vision. What that means, like casting a line to catch a fish, I guess, I don't know. It's not necessarily a biblical picture. Joshua didn't have a vision. He didn't really know what he was supposed to do. But what he had was instructions. And God said, Joshua, don't worry about the future and what's going to happen to you. You do exactly what I tell you. I will exalt you. Well, that's a powerful thing. I am going to lift you up in the same way I lifted up Moses so people looked at him as a leader. There are thousands of books on leadership today and it's a big thing among churches and pastors to try to figure out how to be a leader. God knows how to make leaders. And a God-made leader is a heck of a lot better than a man-made leader. And what God said to Joshua was, you do what I tell you to do. And I'm going to work through your life in such a way so that people will look at you in the same way they looked at Moses. Moses didn't get to his place because of his skill. He said he wasn't a good speaker. He didn't get to his place because he did everything right. He wasn't even able to end the promised land. He did something wrong. He didn't get there because everyone loved him. They tried to kill him before, you know. But what happened was, God possessed Moses' life. And in every one of those circumstances where he was inadequate, or he made a mistake, or he did the wrong thing, God stepped in and by his power and his wisdom and his might, he protected Moses, he gave him the wisdom and the ability to do everything he did so that Moses became a great man because of the power of God in his life. And everyone looked at Moses as a great man because of what God did through Moses and in Moses. Now here's his promise. You don't have to come in and out Moses, Moses. That would have been a big burden. All you have to do is you do tomorrow what I'm going to tell you, and I will lift you up. I will cause people to look at you as exalted, as a leader, as the person they should look up to. I will cause that in your life. This is a great thing for us, you know, because so many people start out in their Christian life and they look at the things God asks them to do, and they say, I know who I am, and I can't do this. And they're right. But what God says whenever He gives us a job in the church is, I will exalt you. I will make you a teacher if I ask you to be a teacher. I will make you a witness if I ask you to be a witness. I will make you a leader in the church if I ask you to take this job. I will make you a pastor and a leader as a pastor if I ask you to take this job. I don't need someone who's good and perfect. What I'm going to take is someone who can't do it, who doesn't have the ability, who doesn't have the skill, who doesn't have any of these things. And I'm going to take them, and I'm going to empower them, and place my spirit in them, and they will be successful, and everyone will know that I am the Lord. See, Moses got in trouble because when it came to letting the water come out of the rock, he and Aaron stood there and said, what are we going to have to do? Make water come out of this rock before you'll believe us? And boy, was God mad. Moses, what makes you think you can make water come out of a rock? He stepped over that line, thinking, after all these things that had gone along, that he was able, or he gave the impression to people, that he was able to do what God alone could do. You speak to the rock when I tell you to speak. You hit the rock when I tell you to hit it, and I will bring the water, and people will see what you've done, and it will bring glory and honor to me. So Joshua, we're going to start this thing together. And I'm going to do in your life exactly what I did in Moses. And when I'm through, people will look at you and say, Joshua was a great man of God. Just like they said about Moses. See, the key ingredient in the church and in the kingdom of God is not the personnel that you have. It's not the skills that you have. It's not the ability that you have. It is how much God controls you. For if he controls your mind, your heart, your will, and your emotions, you can do anything that God asks you to do. And when you do that, he will exalt you to the place where the people around you will recognize your leadership because they see that God is doing in you something of great, wonderful power and authority. What a comfort it must have been to Joshua. Today, I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all of Israel. Man, what a greater, no greater thing could you imagine than that. I have a plan for you, Joshua. You're going to be seen as a great man in Israel. And today, I'm beginning that process. He didn't say that this would happen to Joshua overnight. In fact, Moses is often called in the book of Joshua the man of God, a follower of God, and Joshua is not called that until the end of the book. It took a while for everybody to see who Joshua was and see what Joshua did. But it took a while for Moses too. But God said the beginning starts tomorrow. And my work in you will make you equal to this job. One has to believe that when you get a Sunday school teacher or Sunday school director or discipleship training director or staff person or musician or pastor, that if they're God called, if God has placed them there, and they're submissive and obedient to him, that God will make them the leader they need to be. And the failure to be the leader that you ought to be is not the result of God. You look at the life of Saul and you see that. Saul was head and shoulders above everybody else and he looked like the perfect leader. He lacked one thing. He was not willing to do what God wanted him to do. He was not willing to follow God as God had directed him to do. And so even though he had every opportunity for success, he was a mortal failure. Joshua is given one sign. Today, beginning now, I'm going to make you the leader. I will exalt you to the place of leadership. Why is he doing that? So they, the people of Israel, will know that I am with you as I was with Moses. God's purpose in all of our lives in making us successful as Sunday school workers or musicians or pastors or whatever it is we're doing, he wants people to see that he is at work in our lives. It's one of the reasons God doesn't pick great speakers necessarily to be leaders of his people. Because if you're good at it yourself with your own human ability, where does God come into this picture? But if you're like Moses and you can't speak at all and you become a great speaker, everyone knows where it came from. It was from God. I want them to know what I've done and what I'm doing with you. So he said, now, this is how you're beginning. Tell the priest who carried the Ark of the Covenant, when you reach the edge of the Jordan water, go and stand in the river. First he told them they were to go across the river. Now he tells them that they're to go and just stand in the river. He still hasn't told them what's going to happen. He wants them to go and do this act of foolishness without even knowing what the result is going to be. He could have very easily said to them, go and stand in the water, and when you do, the water will part. They would have said, oh, that makes sense, now we'll go do it. But he didn't tell them that. Just go, stand in the river. Step by step, God gave them exactly what he wanted them to know. Joshua said to the Israelites, come and listen to the words of the Lord your God. This is how you will know that the living God is among you. He will certainly drive out all these people that possess the land. God installs a leadership, the new leadership, among the people. He calls it, he requires certain requirements. And one is, I want everybody to make sure that they're listening to me and me alone. Not your tradition, not how much you love Moses, not what you want. Second, I want you to do exactly what I tell you to do, even though you don't understand what's taking place. Third, I want you to believe that I will make you the person you need to be, the leader you need to be. If it's a leader in a Sunday school class, if it's a leader in a department, or the Sunday school, or admission friends, vacation Bible school, staff, pastor, wherever it is. I am capable of making you what I've asked you to do. And the transformation of leadership begins with these fundamental convictions. If you can believe these things, and if you can do this, God is going to make a seamless transition from Moses to Joshua, and it's going to work. Things that are really impossible for us, changing horses in the middle of the stream, are not impossible to God. Things that are not logical to us, changing your leader, when you're getting ready to undertake the biggest job you've ever faced, seems illogical to us. It's not illogical to God. For you see, God works with a different principle. In the first place, we depend on human resources, wisdom, and ability. That's our limitation. In the second place, for God, he depends on none of that. What he depends on is himself. I mean, you look at a job that we've given, say a transition in a pastor in a church, and you say, oh, it's going to be really hard, it's going to be tough, it's going to be hard, so many things are going to happen. You're talking about a guy who looks out on nothing and says, you know, why don't I just say, I'd like to have light in the universe. Sun pops out, all the stars pop out, the whole sky filled with light that we see. I mean, all he said is, let there be light. How in the world could we think that anything was impossible with that kind of God? How could we? So when we begin to take our eyes off of that, and we begin to say, what can I do? And we should tremble in fear at that prospect. And if that's all there is, disaster looms. But you see, it's not that way with the people of God. For we consecrate ourselves to him, and we say, here we are, God, what do you want? And it works. Let's pray. I don't know if God's asked you to do something that you sort of struggled with, looked at your own inadequacy, backed off, said no to God, looked at your own fears, said no to God, but this is the time to reassess that. When God's placed you in a position of leadership in this church, he intends you to succeed. Not because you're smart enough, or you've read the right books, or because you're going to work harder, but because he's going to give you everything you need to be victorious. God has placed us here in this community with a whole community of people that need to know him. Sometimes it's easy to look at what we are, what we have, and what we do, and despair. But God has placed us here with all these people that need to know him. He has no intention of failing. And the only way we can fail is when we do things in our own wisdom, in our own abilities, in our own plans. When we've learned to hear God and follow him faithfully, there is no room for failure. Lord, consecrate our hearts so that there's not one thing in this world we want, but to obey you. Teach us to listen to you with a passion for obedience. Teach us to listen with a willingness to risk. To do things that you tell us to do, without ever understanding how it will work. That we might be able to experience you exalting us to the place you want us to have. In the name of Jesus we ask this. Amen.