God's Work Through Us: Lessons from Moses

I guess describe it as a description of God's work. This is how God works in the world from Deuteronomy chapter 31, verses 1 through 6. If you want to find that in your Bibles. We look at things in the New Testament to see what gives us courage. Whenever you get ready to do something and you want to say, can I do this? What gives you courage out of the Bible? God never changes. His mercies are new every morning. The promises of Scripture. And one of the things that causes us to have these ideas is the fact that we see these things happening all through the story of the Bible. Jesus did not count on the resurrection for his courage to live. He'd never seen one. The disciples who were following Jesus up until the resurrection did not count on that because they didn't ever see one. What they looked to was the stories of the Bible that are found in the Old Testament that gave them the courage to put aside everything in the world and risk themselves in unusual and unnatural ways in obedience to God. The stories of the Old Testament were the stories that caused them to believe that God's work could be done by human beings. Moses started talking to the people of Israel about the job they would have going into the land of promise, and then he gave them the history of what took place. He ended it with talking about the blessings that God would give to them if they entered the land of promise and kept the commandments that God had given them. He told them the curses that would come to them if they failed to keep the promises or the commandments that God gave to them. Now Moses is sort of wrapping up what he's been talking about, and here he gives us an insight into what gives courage to people to be faithful to do God's work, and something about how God does his work. Verse 1 of chapter 31, Then Moses went out and spoke the words to all Israel, I am now a hundred and twenty years old, and am no longer able to lead you. The Lord has said to me, you shall not cross the Jordan. Now we read that sentence, and it's sort of a simple one to us. We know the story. We know why Moses couldn't go across. We know that he didn't go across, but look back at this situation and see yourself as one of the followers of Moses. You knew the stories about what God had done. He took a man who wasn't a speaker and gave him the ability to speak well and fluently. Moses had never done that before. When God asked him to do it, he just insisted he couldn't do it. When he went, he found he was able to do it. Moses' people were trapped by the Red Sea. You know, he had never parted an ocean before that event. It was brand new work to him. When he got across the desert and there was no food, he'd never made bread rain from heaven. It was not in his historical experience. He had never been able to call quail in to be able to land so they could have meat. He'd never been able to speak to a rock and have that rock squirt water out on him. Moses went through so many things that he'd never, ever experienced before. He was not always comfortable doing these things. Sometimes he didn't quite get it himself, but he had the trust in God to believe that if God asked him to do these things, they would come to pass. Now the situation comes. The people that looked at Moses, watched what he had done, learned to trust him, and now Moses said, they're taking me away. Sometimes we get reliant on the people in our lives that we've learned to trust. It could be a Sunday school teacher in our class and then they move on to something else and people say, oh, we're never going to have another good Sunday school class. Or sometimes a preacher in a church is called to move on to a different kind of location or other kind of work. And people in church say, well, I know the church is just not going to have a future because Brother Bobby was so wonderful and he did so many wonderful things for us. They just think that the end has arrived. We get dependent in the work of God on the individuals through which God does his work. And we tend to think that the individual through which God does his work is the source of the work. Moses knew that he did not have the ability to do all the things that God had asked him to do and to do it. Now his time was over, finished. The Lord had told him, you're not going to go across the Jordan. This is the end of the road for you. He didn't complain. He knew why he wasn't going to get to Cork Cross. He accepted the final result of God in his life. But it was up to the people of Israel. And we're not told very much about what they thought. My guess is there was a lot of discussion among the people around the campfires. What are we going to do without Moses? He has the power of God in his hand. Remember that time at Jericho when he told us to walk around the city seven times and blow our horns and the walls fell in? Remember that time at Ai whenever we were defeated and Moses told us what to do to find the person that did it? How are we going to have someone who could do the things that Moses can do? I don't know and the Bible doesn't tell us that that kind of conversation went on around the fire, but I know enough people to know that that certainly would likely take place. Because when you have a very effective leader who's done good things for a congregation of people and he moves on to another thing or another job or dies, you always hear, what are we going to do? Brother Bobby was such a great gift of God and now he's gone. Our tendency, you see, to look at the work of God and to see the people through whom God works and to assume that that person is the person who's doing the work of God. But it is always God who does the work of God. God does need people through whom he can work, but the people through whom he can work are always dispensable to God. No one ever in the Bible was indispensable to the purpose, work, and the kingdom of God. Even Jesus himself. No one in God's kingdom, even Christ, was indispensable. The time came when Jesus was to die, walk off and leave it. I don't know how he could do that. The twelve guys he had behind him, I mean, they weren't very reliable people. They didn't seem to get it very often. But he knew that his time was there and he left. He had a grasp on what it is that God does. I am a hundred and twenty years old and no longer able to lead you. The Lord has said to me, you shall not cross the Jordan. Every one of us come to times in our lives when God says, no, I don't want you to do this. And sometimes you hang on thinking, well, if I don't do it, what's going to happen? I was talking, I was in a foundation meeting with all the presidents of Kansas, of Southern Baptist Foundations, and a fellow who's from Hawaii is retired, and he's been retired quite a while, but he keeps doing the foundation work over there. His wife is Oriental and looking, and I don't know if she's Japanese or Chinese or what, but he said, I've been trying to find somebody to take my place, but every time I get somebody that's about ready, they say no or death falls through. His wife said, I keep telling him, if you'll just resign, God will find someone to do it. Why is he not resigning? He thinks, if I don't do this, it's going to fall apart. I'm sure Moses could feel that way, and I'm sure the people that watched him could feel that way. But God's plan is never dependent on a human being, excuse me, on a human being, one human being alone. His plans are always dependent on humans, but not anyone is indispensable to God. So when you think about your own ministry to God, your own service to God, he uses people to do his service, but none of us, none of us are indispensable. The time for the great Moses, the lawgiver, excuse me, the great lawgiver for God to say, I'm through with your part of the history of my work with people. You step aside, but I'll tell you this, it's going on. You will not stop it when you're gone. This is a great confidence that we can have in God, that when we are doing his work, now if we're doing something that we've built up, or that all depends on us out of our own will and interest, and I'll tell you, when you quit it, it falls flat on its face. But when you're doing what God has asked you to do, God has guaranteed that there will be someone somewhere that he pulls into that place and resumes exactly what he wanted to do. Now the next one didn't give the Ten Commandments, he didn't do all the things Moses did, but he did all the things that were needed from that moment on. So the work that everybody does is a little different, but it is always the work that God gives and empowers. Now if you look at verse 3, the Lord your God himself will cross over ahead of you. He will destroy these nations before you, and you will take possession of their land. Joshua also will cross over ahead of you, as the Lord said, and the Lord will do to them what he did to Sihonag, the kings of the Amorites, whom he destroyed along with their land. The second thing that he says gives us the courage to understand why people did what they did. He said, you're going into the land of promise, but here's the deal, what I have asked you to do, I, God, have asked you to do, I will go ahead of you. I will cross over ahead of you. The courage that God gives us all, and this is what Jesus was talking about in his own life when he said, I do what the Father tells me to do. He knew that what the Father told him to do, he would always be following the Father. And what makes it difficult for us is when God asks us to do a job, it can be anything in the world. When he gives us a job to do, we look at the job and we see the task, and we can't see what God has already done. Here's the promise he makes. When you know what God wants you to do, and you're sure of what God wants you to do, he doesn't just tell you to do something and then you go do it. He has already prepared ahead of you for what's going to take place. If he asks you to teach a Sunday school class, he's prepared ahead of time. You're following his leading. He's prepared ahead of time the people who are going to be in that group. So they can relate to you. He's worked in their minds and their hearts so that the things he tells you and the things in your life will influence them. God goes ahead of us when we do his work. How does he do this? He prepares people for the kind of message or witness that your life can give. He creates a hunger in them for what they need to hear. He convinces them that there's something missing or empty in their life. He raises questions or issues in their life that they're struggling with. And then after he's done all this, he steps back and says, okay, now I want you to do this job. What we see is here are a bunch of people out there have no idea about them. They don't want to listen to me. They're not interested in what I have to say. So how could I ever do anything to help them? You see, we forget that God always precedes us. Now if you get out of line and you take a responsibility that God doesn't ask you to do and you jump in and try to do your very best and be great and successful, forget it. You're going to fail. But if in the process of this you've listened to God and followed him and you do what he asks you, you can be sure that the people with whom you're working or to whom you're witnessing, God has already entered their minds and hearts. They're already saying, now God, I wish I could hear this. I have questions that I don't know how to answer. And then he puts in your mind and heart, out of your own experience or the study that you have, he prepares you. And when you step into this position, they're ready for this. They're ready to hear what you have to say. And if you've witnessed a very many people in your life, you've discovered how many times this takes place. When you get ready to start talking to them, they want to know what you know how to tell them because their hearts are prepared. Their minds are prepared. When you go in to fight this battle in the land of promise, you're not going in there and you're not the first landing group. There's already been someone there who's softened the enemy up. There's already been somebody there who's changed the minds of those people who are going to listen to you. They're going to be ready to hear you for this. In this instance, I'm going to go ahead of you and I'm going to put fear into them so that they will think when you come into this land, they're going to be terrified of you. They're going to want to run. I'm going to remind them of the stories of what I did it at the Sea of Galilee, at the Red Sea, and I'm going to remind them of what happened to Og and the other kings that tried to invade, tried to stop you. And whenever they hear all those stories, they're going to be terrified of you. And so when the battle time comes, they're going to be ready to run. God goes ahead of us in any job that we have to do. It doesn't matter if it's raising your children. God goes ahead of you. It doesn't matter if it's about your marriage. God goes ahead of you. He has in mind how to raise a child. He has in mind how to be married. He has in mind how to manage your finances. He has in his own mind the way to live your life. And whenever you start out saying, OK, God, I'm going to do these things that you want me to do. I'm going to have a Christian home. I'll raise my children to know about you. This is a big job. But you're not the first lander on the land. He's already been there. He's already prepared. You know, when an evasion occurs, what happens to them? They start out, soldiers are hunkered down. They get the long-range artillery, get airplanes to bomb, and they shoot the artillery into the places where the enemy is. They have bombers that come and drop bombs on the enemy. They soften the enemy, that's what they call it, so that by the time you have to get up and run into battle with them, they're already decimated. They're already sleepless. They're already afraid. And now your job is much easier. No one would ever make an invasion without that kind of preparation, because you build a plan for failure. God's at least as smart as army generals. And he never asks us to do his work that he hasn't preceded us, so that what he's asked us to do, the person is prepared, the circumstances are prepared, the situations are prepared. Oh, but wait a minute. Sometimes it doesn't seem that way. You know why? We have in our own mind what the success ought to be. I'm going to witness to this person, they're going to say, oh, Lord, I can see now, I need to accept Jesus, fall on his knees right there and pray. But most of the time he doesn't do it, because our witnessing to this person is God's preparation for the time when it comes, when that person's heart is finally prepared. We anticipate in our own mind what God's success should be like. And our idea of God's success is quite different than the idea of God's success. So sometimes we're called to do things that we don't see the kind of result we want, and we think, boy, that was a failure, I should never have done that. But if you talk to people who've come to know Christ, who've had their life changed by following Christ, you will oftentimes have them tell you about times in their past when someone talked to them. They didn't accept Christ, it didn't happen to them then, but they were set up for the next time that happened to understand what they were supposed to do. God prepares people sometimes by using us as advanced agents before the final victory is fought. But he always precedes us even there. He brings us together with the person so that our words are a part of the words that prepare for the final victory that comes to pass. So we don't look at our work or service and try to judge the success of it. When someone told me one time, said, I don't know how you get up and preach every Sunday morning and nobody ever comes, don't you get discouraged about that? Well, I would and could get discouraged if I thought my job was to convince people to come and make some commitment to Christ. That isn't my job. What my task is, is to proclaim the truth of God as he directs me. That's quite a different thing. So at the end of the service, if I think I've prepared and if I think I've said the things I need to say and I've said it the way I should say it, whether any of you are awake or not, is not my problem. Because I don't work for you, I work for God. And if I can say when the day is over, when the sermon's finished, God, I told them what I thought you wanted me to tell them, I told it to them the best I know how, and I placed this in your hands, then I'm satisfied. What more could you want than to please God? Well inside of us, what we begin to long for is the kind of result we'd like to have. We'd like to see success in this way or that way or another way. But that's not the way God works. He asks us to do what he wants us to do, and he precedes us in everything that takes place. This is why it's so important for people in the church to pray and find the will of God. You know what happens a lot of times in churches? You go to church in a big city somewhere, and you go in there, and they have this and that and the other, and they hand you this bulletin, and they have printed on the bulletin all kinds of things, and they have videos, and they have music, and they have preachers, you know, he's dressed in overalls or whatever. And you say, boy, there's thousands of people here. We ought to do that in great band. If they do that because God told them to do it, that's what they should do. But you see, the problem is we're not to look around at people around us and say, we need to do what they're doing. We need to say to God, what do you want us to do? Sometimes God asks us to go against the grain. I'm sure that the very last thing that the people of Israel thought would work to capture Jericho was marching around it seven times and blowing horn and breaking glasses. I'm sure the guys who are marching around there said, this is the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life. I don't know why we're doing this. And God sometimes puts us in those circumstances where what we're doing does not make sense to us. There's a reason for it, though. He wants us to know that whatever He asks us to do, whatever He tells us to do, it will work because He's already gone ahead of us. When we try to copy what other people do or do things here that we think will make us big and strong and get a lot of people to come because it's popular or because other people do it, we're destined to fail you because God hadn't told us to do it. Now He may tell us to do exactly the same things that everybody else in the world is doing. We just need to be sure that He's told us that. What Moses understood and what he said to the people is, you're going to enter the land of promise. It's going to look impossible to you. But I want to tell you, God has told you, you should enter the land of promise. And because He's told you that, He's going ahead of you and He's going to prepare you for every problem that you'll face. And you will win the victory. If you want to witness to somebody and you begin to pray for them, and God puts it in your mind to write them a note, write a note. If you come again, talk to someone, and He said, you should just go over there and say to them, you need to get saved today. You can stop and ask God if that's what He wants you to do, but be sure God's told you to do it. Because if you don't, you're like jumping in a lion's den with no weapons. But if God has told you to do it, you're like facing an ant with a shoe that's a ten-and-a-half inch shoe. You're going to win. You're going to enter the land of promise, He said, but the Lord your God will cross over ahead of you. And here's what He's going to do. He will destroy these nations before you and you will take possession of their land. Joshua will also cross over ahead of you, as the Lord has said. And the Lord will do to them what He did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, who He destroyed along with their land. God is going to give you the victory. His plan is victory. It is not a part of God's plan that a church would die, so long as there are unsaved people around it. And if it does die because of that, it's only because the people have not been obedient to God. That's the only reason it could happen. There are thousands of unsaved people in this town, thousands of them. Some of them don't care about God and some of them are looking for something to help them. Some of them that don't care will someday be looking too. When the fruit is ripe, God wants someone ready to go. What He looks for in the town is He looks around to say, I've got this one over here who's really ready. I need a lady who's really not afraid to tell the truth and who's not afraid to tell what God has done in her life. Now how can I put this lady and that person together and He'll work it out some way. If all the ladies in our church are not willing to do that, He'll get somebody else. It may be your next door neighbor, even people at work right next to you, but He'll get someone else because He cares for every person and He's out there ahead of us at work doing what He wants us to do. I haven't had very many times a powerful example of what God does, but I've had a couple that just really made the truth of this home to me. One day I was finishing work at the church, I drove home and I'd been thinking about where I was supposed to go that Monday night and I hadn't had any idea. So I was driving back from home after I'd eaten and I was saying to God, you know, I've given you this evening and it's all in your hands. I could do other things, but I know you want me to be here and I know you want me to go. Where should I go? And just like that, a name popped in my mind. It was a young man, came to church. We all went out to our destinations. I went down to see him. Went up to his house, lived in an old ramshackle trailer home and I mean the porch was falling in and everything. He was only in his early twenties and I stopped and walked up on the porch and shook hands with him. He said, you know, it hadn't been 30 minutes ago that I said, God, would you send somebody to help me? I mean, you can't, you can't imagine how that feels to know that you are close enough to God that he had someone just ready and he put you in that place. I didn't even know where I was going to go for 10 minutes before that happened, but he asked and God sent someone. I had another experience in almost the same way when I was this young lady that was in here in town. She used to work with Butch and she'd started coming to church and someone was with me that day and I said, I don't know where to go, but this lady's name's in my mind. Let's go down and see her. We went down there and knocked on her. She came to the back door. She opened the door and said, I have a friend in here, and I don't remember his name, and she said, we were reading the Bible and I told him, I don't know what that means, but my pastor's going to be here in a little while and he'll explain it. You know, it's just, it's overwhelming. It may not happen to you every time in your life so visibly, but those were evidences to me that God always precedes his followers. He always precedes it. You don't always see it that clearly, but you must accept what God says. You're going into the land of promise. I'm going to go ahead of you. I'm going to defeat the enemy already before you get there, and the victory will come. And if we don't trust that, we won't have those kind of experiences. You can count on the 50 times. I've had a lot of people go out with me and they'll go out 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 times and nothing happens. They quit. They just quit. Now I've gone out there with you 10 times or so and nothing happens. Well, that's true. But for those times in which you see the end result, I can tell you it's more than worth it for all the others. As old as the Old Testament, Jesus knew if I do what the Father tells me to do, it doesn't matter what happens. They can kill me. I'm still going to win because He's ahead of me. He was on the cross before Jesus was there. He was in the tomb before Jesus was there, and He was there to do what only God can do, and that is to defeat the enemies that had hold of Him. Verse 5, He said, The Lord will deliver them to you, and you must do to them all that I've commanded you. Now what is our part? Verse 6, Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them. For the Lord your God goes with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. What He asked us to do is to have courage. Now I just have to admit, I've not had courage all the time when God asked me to do something. I went one time, it was just starting out, and I was sitting in college, and God put it on my mind I should go see this guy. He was a single fellow and lived in a cabin, a shack that didn't have any bathroom in it or even running water in it, and he was different. He was different. And I drove up past his house, and I thought, boy, I drove past and I drove back by. I probably went by that house four or five times before I went in. I've done it before to go four or five, six times and not have the courage to go in. And whenever you do have the fear, and that's what it is, the fear, I'm afraid if I go in there and talk to these people about the Lord. I'll look foolish. They'll think I'm an idiot. They'll think I'm too aggressive. I was worried about what they would think about me. I was worried about the result that would come. I was afraid. Be strong, he said. Have enough strength and will to do what you know you're supposed to do. I don't know that I ever go out to call on anybody that I don't have fears. But your fears are not necessarily what stops you. It's listening to your fears instead of the promise of God. And I'll tell you why God gave me those two experiences I'll tell you about. Because a lot of times when I have fear, I remember those. I remember those. I say, you know, if I hadn't had those, gone ahead and gone, I wouldn't have that kind of confidence to see what God has done. Be courageous. Be this kind of strength that says, courage to say, it doesn't matter to me, God, what other people think. It only matters to me what you think of me. And so I can do anything you ask as long as I know you want me to do it. And I'm going to reserve in my mind what you think. And if I go in there to talk to someone or go to my next door neighbor and talk to them and they act like I'm foolish or an idiot, I'm going to stop and say, you're smiling because I've obeyed you. And your smile is worth more to me than the anger and the ridicule of the whole world. Strength is the strength to be able to do what you're supposed to do. If you have physical strength, you have enough muscles to lift the weight, you can do it. If you have the fortitude to be obedient to God, you can do it. If you simply do what he says. So you have courage and you have strength. The willingness to do it and strength to do it. The strength that we have comes two ways. One is it comes because we ourselves have a message to give. I want to tell people what Christ has done for me. And so the more you have in your own repertoire an experience in life where you can talk to people about what God has done, then you have courage to do it. Strengthen your spiritual life so that you are living the way God wants you to live. And then when you go to do the work that God has given you, you can do it with success. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them. Don't look at your enemy and be anxious to please them. Look at your Lord and be anxious to please him. For the Lord your God goes with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Does that sound familiar? Jesus was given the great commission. He said, Go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And lo, I am with you always to the end of the world. Nothing stands between God being with us, nothing except our disobedience. Whenever Jesus said that, he was quoting the idea of the Old Testament. You go out and do the work of God and he is going to be with you no matter what happens. You will never be without him. When are you without him? When he crosses the river and he is doing the work and you are sitting on the other side, you are by yourself. You want to be with him. You get up and you go. You might be afraid of what is out there, but you are much worse off back there where you think you are safe than being with Jesus when you think it is a danger, but he is with you. And so what you think would make you safe, I am just not going to do it, really is the greatest danger you have because you are there by yourself. Satan, you are vulnerable to him. Someone came one time and talked about being a missionary in Iran, Iraq. She was a single lady and she was called to be a missionary over there and she couldn't go and be appointed by the mission board. She had to just go to teach school and do things like that. Someone asked her, after she had showed the slides of what she was going to do, someone asked her, said, aren't you afraid to go? And she said, I am afraid to stay. She said, the safest place in the world is to be in the center of God's will. What we think is safety is sometimes the most dangerous place to be because God is not with us. He didn't say, I will be with you even if you rebel me and you resist me and you turn away from me. He says, I will be with you when you are making disciples. And that is His promise and He never fails. Would you bow your heads for a moment? I would like to ask you if there is anything that you know God wants from you, that you have been refusing to do. You always have a good reason for it. We are afraid, terrified, because we look at our ability and say, we can't do that. If you learn to listen to God and you hear His voice and you have the courage and you have the strength and you are not afraid of the people around you so much as you are afraid of displeasing your Father, you will find victory in your life. If there is something you know God has been wanting you to do, I would like to ask you just to say to God, okay, I put this off, I said no, but I know what you want and I am going to do it. I am not strong enough, I am not smart enough, but you are both strong enough and you are smart enough. So, I will do what you tell me and trust that the victory is already prepared for me. That is our prayer, Lord. Amen.