Moses- A worthy leader

In focus. Rightly seeing God & How he sees us. Vision matters. 

As we look at each person this year, we are going to ask two questions: 

1. How did they see God? 
2. How does God see us? 

Moses is a familiar figure to us from scripture. He is born into a sad time in the history of God’s people. After the account of Joseph, who saved Egypt, but now they had forgotten about that time, and have put the Israelites in slavery. They had removed their freedom. What would this do to your self-esteem? To your self-worth? You would feel worthless. You would probably pass this understanding of worthlessness on to your children. 

Exodus 1:12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. 13 So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves 14 and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves. 

What would your view of God be? The God who promised your ancestors to make you a great nation. Would you think your God valued you at all? Maybe they thought to themselves, if God cared about us, if he thought we were worth so much to Him, why do I wake up as a slave every day? Why doesn’t he rescue me? Do you feel that way? Do you feel worthless? Do you feel like God cares about you or has forgotten about you? If He did why do I wake up still a slave to sin? Why can’t I get out of this cycle? Why doesn’t God rescue me? And that is how we see God. But in reality God is doing things we do not see. We need to adjust our vision. 

God was doing something in Moses’s day, that they did not see. In the end of chapter 1, we find the Hebrew midwifes, the ladies who delivered the babies for Israel, stilled feared God. And they ignore the instructions to kill all the boys. They saw God differently. The knew he was able to save them even if the most powerful man in the world told them something differently. 

Exodus 1:21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”

God gives blessing to Israel because of a few people who saw him the right way. Do not underestimate living as a person who rightly sees God and the effect what that means to God. 

Moses is born into this, saved by his sister in a baskets and grows up in the house of Pharaoh after being adopted by Pharaoh’s wife. 

Exodus 2:11 One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. 12 He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?” 14 He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” 15 When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. And he sat down by a well.

Somewhere along Moses’s upbringing he is either taught or learns about his Hebrew heritage. And as a grown man, he kills an Egyptian, runs aways from everything he knew. And he sits down by a well wondering what the rest of his life would bring. Do you think that he questioned if he was worthy or not? I am sure he questioned if God cared about him? The Egyptians sure didn’t care about him. I am sure Moses had to endure being told he was not worthy growing up, he was not a real son of Pharaoh, not a real Egyptian. He even got it from the Hebrews. Who do you think you are? The reality was, I don’t think he knew. So here he sits. Not sure how he sees God, and certainly not sure how God saw him.

He meets the daughters of the priest of Midian, goes home with them, marries one of them and picks up their family trade; becoming a shepherd. He was happy. Maybe he began to enjoy what he was doing, but I do not think he had answered the question of how God saw him?  But God was about to clear that up for him.

Exodus 2:23 During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. 24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.

God knew. He already knew what He was going to do to help them. Keep reading. 

Exodus 3:1 Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. 3 And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” 4 When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5 Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6 And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. 7 Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9 And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. 10 Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” 11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

God lays out his whole plan to Moses. He opens his eyes to see things how God is looking at the situation. It is like God putting his arm around him and saying, “Look Moses, here is what we are going to do. I will send you.” But Moses didn’t see it like God did, in fact, he informs God how he sees himself, “Who am I?” I am not worthy to do what you are saying. Then he is going to go on to tell God, he is not capable of doing what God is asking him to go do. 

God’s anger burns at his view of himself, at all his excuses, and he says, enough. I am sending you with my mighty hand. Aaron will speak for you. You will be like god to Him. Moses finally agreed and went to meet Aaron. 

Exodus 4:28 And Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord with which he had sent him to speak, and all the signs that he had commanded him to do. 29 Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the people of Israel. 30 Aaron spoke all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses and did the signs in the sight of the people. 31 And the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped.

Do you think that in the moment Moses began to see God differently? The people believed him. What changed? Moses submitted to God. He allowed God to open his eyes. He began to see that maybe he was a capable leader like God said he would be. He goes on to lead the people out of Egypt, become the leader of a million people. He is the spiritual leader who gives them the law. He is the judge over all the people. He becomes one of the largest figures in the history of the Christian world besides Jesus. A man who sat at a well wondering how God saw him. 

What would Moses tell you if you are sitting here doubting your self worth, or your ability to be a leader? Trust God. Be careful to do all that he commands you to do. See him the right way. Know that how he sees you is much different than how we see ourselves. Get up from the well you may find yourself setting at and trust God.