I. We Need Heroes 00:01
Good morning. We are drawing to the end of our Exodus series. We’ve got this week and next week. This week we’re going to summarize the life of one of the greatest men to ever walk the earth, and that is Moses.
And it’s fascinating to me, as I was thinking about this this morning: how did God communicate himself to us throughout Scripture? He found people who were willing to say yes to what he was doing, and then he had others record their stories, that we might learn not a list of rules and a list of ideas, but a pathway to become a man or a woman of God.
It really hit me this morning how our culture is so bankrupt, because we don’t have heroes. In fact, if you find a hero, it is almost guaranteed that within the course of their career or lifetime they will have an enormous scandal, they will go crazy, or something will come out, and you find out, “Oh, they weren’t heroic at all.” Now, I will say that most of the problem is the people we’re picking: Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, celebrities, athletes. I mean, I understand that there can be amazing celebrities and athletes, but we’re using the wrong yardstick for influence in our life.
We need to find people that we can look up to and model our lives after. That’s actually the way that human beings are wired. If you think you can figure out everything you need to know between your ears, by reading or by studying your job or whatever, and you’re never looking with admiration towards those people with great character, those people who have gone before, those stories of how people have suffered and overcome hardship by the power of the Holy Spirit, well, then guess what? You have made yourself a god. You’ve made your own ability to understand the world the only thing that you will serve.
So as we look at Moses this morning, we get to see a man who lived his life for God, a man who made mistakes like every one of us, but a man who showed us the path to live for God.
II. Prepare the Way of the Lord 02:37
And what are we talking about this Advent Sunday? We’re talking about preparing the way of the Lord. So who of you is going out and buying cobblestones so that we can make a pathway for him to get to Saint Michael’s? None of us, because we understand that’s not what it’s talking about. But I do think that we still misunderstand what that means. Preparing the way for the Lord doesn’t mean to be like John the Baptist. It doesn’t mean to go out into the world and say, “Jesus is coming! Prepare the way of the Lord! Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matt 3.2–3) At least, it doesn’t only mean that. Absolutely there is a call to tell the world that the kingdom of heaven is here. But what John the Baptist was doing is he was preaching to us. And what was the pathway that he was telling these people to follow? It was: prepare the way of the Lord in your own heart and in your own life.
Each of us is looking with anticipation towards Christmas. What are you doing to move the stuff out of the way so that Jesus can show up in your life? That’s my question this morning. And as we look at Moses, I’m asking myself the same question: what are the things that I’m holding on to that I need to move out of the way to prepare the way of the Lord in my life?
We’re not going to go over Moses’ whole story; we’ve been doing that for weeks. But we’re going to touch on the last couple of things that we hear about Moses, the crucial moments that led to his death. And guess what, guys? He didn’t get to go to the promised land. We’ve been going through this entire Exodus, and Moses has been our central character, Moses and the people of Israel, and we’re saying, “We’re getting to the promised land.” And I have the good fortune, or misfortune, to tell you today that Moses doesn’t make it.
So let’s talk about what happened in his life, so that he simultaneously is the hero to look up to and the hope for us sinners. He’s both. We want to imitate him, and take heart, because he messed up. We do too. God is the main character in this story, in Moses’ life and in ours.
III. Moses Intercedes for the People 04:45
So let’s start in Exodus, and let’s actually pick up. The last time you heard me preach on this series, we were talking about the golden calf. So you know what happened: Moses goes up the mountain, he receives the handwritten Ten Commandments on tablets of stone, he comes back down, and the people of Israel have already made a god to follow out of gold, a golden calf. We talked about the ridiculousness of it. What was the problem there? The problem wasn’t that they were looking for another god. It was that they were making Yahweh, the God of all, the God that saved them from Egypt, into their own idea of who God was, in a golden calf. And so they’ve sinned greatly, because they said this calf, this little thing that we made, saved us from Egypt. They attributed to the calf the things that God did. And so this is the great sin that we’re going to encounter here.
When we pick up with Moses, he’s talking to the people. He’s already slain three thousand people in the course of that reconciliation, trying to bring them back to God (Exod 32.28). And now he’s talking to them, and he says:
30 The next day Moses said to the people, “You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to Yahweh; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” Exod 32.30
I kind of think about it like this (I’m just making this up; I don’t think this ever happened): it’s like if my mom came downstairs and saw me doing something wrong, like, I don’t know, let’s see here, maybe I was deleting the Cowboys game off the DVR, and my dad… And she comes down and says, “This great sin you have done! I will go to your father and try to make atonement.” There’s a real sense of danger here. There’s a real sense that if Moses fails, then God’s gonna wipe them off the face of the earth. I do like to think that my mom and dad both saved me from one another over the years. I survived to today.
But the question is, Moses is going to talk to God, because the people have abandoned him, and God in his justice is considering wiping them from the face of the planet and making his own people out of Moses. It’s like, “Moses, don’t worry, I’ll just make you my chosen people.” And we know he can do it; he started with one. So we’re looking here and we see Moses, and he goes up, and this is such a powerful prayer:
31 So Moses returned to Yahweh and said, “Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold. 32 But now, if you will forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.” Exod 32.31–32
This is the hero that we want to look to. When we think of Moses, we want to think about the guy who said, “I would rather be blotted out of your book than that the people should perish.” And immediately, when we’ve heard the word atonement here, we should be thinking of Jesus. Moses got it, up here and in here. Moses got the heart of God, so that even when God said, “I’m going to wipe them off the face of the planet; let’s go, Moses” (he’s inviting him to go on this plan), Moses said, “No, God, that’s not what you want. Show mercy, and I’ll take the fall.”
That is the heart of a hero: the man who is willing, even when he has been unjustly used, even when he’s been disobeyed, even when he’s done his best to represent God to the people and they have rejected him, to say, “I’ll take the blame. I will shoulder the burden, the responsibility.” And each of us should think, as we prepare the way for Jesus: how are we doing that for those around us? Are we taking on the burden of sin in our culture, or are we condemning everyone to hell? All I’m saying is, maybe we need to shift our perspective a little bit, because God has shown, through Moses here and later through Jesus, that his interest is to save the world, not to condemn it.
IV. I Will Not Go Up Among You 09:15
Now, Yahweh’s response here: there’s still a consequence to their actions. And so as we go forward, when Yahweh says, “Okay, fine, I won’t wipe them off the face of the planet,” this is what he will do. This is the consequence. He says to Moses:
1 “Depart; go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your offspring I will give it.’ 2 I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 3 Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.” Exod 33.1–3
So what’s going on here? He’s saying, “I can send you to the promised land, but because you have chosen idolatry over me, you don’t get me. You don’t get my presence, because you chose another god. If you will be my people, I will be your God. But if you won’t, I can’t.” That’s the invitation to all of us. That’s why it says you have life and death before you (Deut 30.19). Will you choose God to be your God, or will you run after other gods?
But what’s going on in this historically is that God was making the people of Israel into the promised land people. We’ve been talking about this for a while. The reason why it took forty years in the desert is because those slaves, who had been slaves for four hundred years, couldn’t move into the promised land without turning it into another Egypt. They needed to learn the ways of God, the ways of Yahweh. They needed to unlearn that slavery. In the very same way, each of us was saved when we were slaves in our sins and trespasses, and our whole life is God teaching us to be the people of the kingdom of God, the people who can live in freedom. God has a plan, both with these people and with us.
And the point of what he’s saying here is, “You rejected my plan, and so you can have the promises, because I’m a man of my word, but you don’t get to have me.” And this is the perfect moment, when Moses, who has already been dealing with this people for months, even years, in the desert (and trust me, these Israelites have not been nice to him, as we all know), had this opportunity to go and experience the land of milk and honey, the promises of God, without God. But he knew the heart of God, and he knew what was important.
So how did Moses respond? And I would argue that this is actually the moment why Moses is the hero of the faith that he is. This was the crucial choice in his entire life. “You can have all the promises of God, everything you’ve been hoping for. I won’t go with you, but I’ll send an angel before you.” What did Moses say? “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here” (Exod 33.15).
You can have the house, you can have the car, you can have the family, you can have the husband, you can have the this, you can have the that, all the things, the job, whatever God has promised you, “but I won’t be there.” And Moses said, “No, I want you.” Because what’s the point of what God is teaching the Israelites? He’s teaching them that even when you have all of the promised land, you need to remember that “I am the promise.” The true promise of the Israelites is, “If you will be my people, I will be your God.” The promise of the land of Canaan is linked to that, but it is not the central thing.
V. Advent Is a Shell Game 12:42
Advent is a shell game. It’s a confusing time for us, I think, as Christians. Because, as Father Powell alluded to last week, we’re told it’s a semi-penitential season where you have to really get your heart right. But everything in our culture and everything around is anticipation, because Santa is coming, because the Jesus baby is coming, because the festivities are coming. So how do you balance this? “Oh, I need to repent and prepare the way of the Lord. The ax is laid to the root of the tree. He’s going to burn up the chaff” (Matt 3.10–12), with this anticipation of joy?
Well, I would argue that the way you do it is you focus on the real thing. If you get caught up focusing on how you might get a new iPod this Christmas (I’m aware they don’t make iPods anymore, but let’s just use that as an example), if you get caught up focused on the promise, then you will miss the person. And if you focus on the things, then what are you going to be doing this next month? You’re going to be running around malls and shopping centers and trying to get that extra Christmas bonus, or trying to work those extra hours so you can afford the things. And you’ll be blind to the person.
And it’s the same game that God’s playing with Moses here: “You can have the things, but you won’t have me.” But Moses was watching. You know what a shell game is, where they have the little cups and they’re moving the ball around? And God moves this one forward: “You can have this.” And the cup represents the promised land. And Moses says, “No, I want the real thing. Where is the ball that you’re hiding?” That’s the presence of Jesus.
So today, this week, this month, as we’re going towards Christmas, don’t get caught in the shell game. Don’t get caught ranting at God in line for that one thing that you have to buy, or in traffic, or when you look at your bank account and you realize how much money you’ve spent, whatever it is that makes you stressed, that brings that anxiety. Don’t get caught in the shell game. Remember the real thing. Prepare the way of the Lord, because Jesus himself is coming. Praise God, Jesus is coming in each of our lives. In fact, we spend forty hours a week so that we can afford the things, but we struggle to spend fifteen minutes a day so we can meet the person. Just something I thought we should think about.
VI. Show Me Your Glory 14:54
And this moment in Moses’ life, where he chooses God over the promises, this moment is when he says, “Please show me your glory” (Exod 33.18). And God says yes. So maybe a precondition for seeing God is choosing him instead of the promise. Maybe a precondition for being the type of person who can have his face transformed to reflect the glory of God, as Moses did, where he came off the mountain and it was so bright he had to put a veil on, because the glory of God was so present in him (Exod 34.29–35), maybe that requires you choosing God instead of the things.
There’s a great quote (I didn’t pull it up), but the sum of it is: we want good without God, and God says, “I am the good.” We often try and find an end-around: “I want my happiness and pleasure without the cost.” And God says, “No, the cost brings it.” Jesus went to the cross for the joy that was set before him (Heb 12.2).
So when we try and contrast this anticipation of hope and the semi-penitential season (“Woe is me, repent,” and “Yes, Christmas is coming”), those are necessarily connected. You can’t have one without the other. Your hope without cost will lead to an empty, unfulfilled promise. If you focus on the things, then you’ll open them up on Christmas and you might get that little high: “Oh wow, that was so great.” But you’ll miss the person, the fulfillment. Now, the things are great. Santa’s great. Christmas is great. The anticipation is great. But remember that anything worth having or doing costs something.
And God’s not so concerned with giving you the promised land as he is with making you a promised land people. Because when you become a promised land people, it doesn’t matter where you are; you will carry the presence of God with you. I’d rather have God in the desert than no God in the land flowing with milk and honey. That’s the choice before us every day.
So Moses says, “God, show me your glory.” He’s up on the mountain, and God says, “You can’t see my face. You’ll see my back. I’ll put you in the cleft of the rock and I’ll pass by” (Exod 33.20–23). But he kept saying, “You can’t see my face.” No one can see his face.
VII. Grace and Truth Came Through Jesus Christ 17:31
And then we have the great Christmas passage, probably my favorite Christmas passage, which is John 1. I’m a theology nerd, so it’s probably not your favorite one. But it’s the one where it’s like, the Word came, and the Word was God, the Word was with God, and the Word was in the beginning, and word, word, words. We’re going to read a little part of this, because it references exactly why we should care about Moses when it comes to Jesus. So in John 1, beginning in verse 14, it says:
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known. John 1.14–18
Moses said, “I choose you over the promise,” and he got to see God’s back. Jesus came and said, “I am the promise,” and all of us get to see God face to face.
Now, the shell game can still cause you to miss it, because there were plenty of people who saw Jesus and didn’t see God. There were many, many people who saw Jesus throughout his whole ministry, throughout his whole life, but they missed God. So the question that I want you to think about, when we think about the difference between Moses and Jesus, is this: Jesus, the guy who Moses was begging to see, is yours today. You get to see him today. Not necessarily like we will in the afterlife. We’re in this already-not-yet tension between what is now and what will be, and someday we’ll see him face to face in a way that will change everything. But you know what? That day can also be today. That’s the cool thing about Christianity. When Jesus, who is the eternal Son of the Father, outside of time, died on the cross and rose again, he made himself present to all of us every day. And he said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb 13.5).
And so as we think about this moment of Advent, where we’re preparing the way of the Lord, who are we preparing for? Jesus is coming. Let’s remember that if we aren’t seeing Jesus in our day-to-day, if we aren’t encountering God, it’s not because he isn’t there. It’s because we need to prepare the way. And that means something different for everybody. But I promise you that if you will open yourself to what God wants to do this Advent, he will open your eyes to see him work in your life. I don’t know what that will mean for you or me, but I know that I want that. I want that every Advent. I want to know how to see God, to see Jesus.
VIII. Striking the Rock 21:00
Okay, so we’ve got Moses, and he comes down from the mountain. He’s got the shining face. He’s leading the people of Israel. Why in the world was Moses forbidden to enter the promised land? What happened? Let me tell you a quick story. Let’s not even throw the Scriptures on the screen, because it’ll just be confusing. I’m going to sum it up; it’s a little easier.
They get to a place where there is no water, once again. And you think, “The Israelites have done this. We’ve played this game.” There is no water: “God, why didn’t you leave us in Egypt to die?” God provides water. There is no food: God provides food. They’ve done this over and over and over again. And just like you and me, they get to the place where there is no water, and their first instinct is to say, “God, there is no water. Why didn’t you just leave us in Egypt to die?”
But there’s another wrinkle this time, because Moses’ sister just died. We’re literally told in one verse that Moses’ sister died, and in the next verse, “And there was no water,” and the people called out to Moses and said, “Why didn’t you leave us in Egypt?” (Num 20.1–5) Moses is in a place of grief. He’s in a place of mourning. He’s in a place where he’s more sensitive. Every time before, Moses has responded correctly. He’s gone to God and he said, “Your people… I will do whatever you need me to do.” He’s responded correctly. And then this one time he had a moment of weakness in his life.
So let’s talk about what happened here. Yahweh says to Moses, “Take your staff, get the people together, speak to the rock, and water will come out” (Num 20.8). Now, we’ve already seen it before. He struck the rock, the water came out. We know that. We’re told in the New Testament that the rock where the water comes out is Jesus (1 Cor 10.4). And just like Jesus was stabbed on the cross and water flowed out of his side (John 19.34), the rock represents Jesus, who was struck, and water flowed out.
But Moses, who got the word from God (“Speak to the rock, and the water’s going to come out”), gets the Israelites together, and he’s had enough. And he says, “Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” (Num 20.10) I love that: “Hear now, you rebels.” It’s like he means that as a serious insult. “Shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” You catch that? “Shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” It’s talking about him and Aaron. Who’s bringing the water out from the rock? Is Moses gonna stab this rock and water is going to come out? Or is God going to bring the water to water the people?
11 And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock. 12 And Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” Num 20.11–12
So we just got finished talking about how Moses is our hero who we look up to, because he chose God instead of the promise, because he led the people before God. He lived his whole life for God. And now we have him make the fatal misstep. Well, guess what? When things are going well in your life, it’s pretty darn easy to make this misstep. There are two big ones: pride and disobedience. The first one, I think, leads to the second one. He thinks, “I’m the one who has done the wonders, and they’re getting mad at me.” When they’re complaining about God, when they say, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt?”, Moses is like, “You ungrateful people! I have led you out.” Something is happening in his head. He’s starting to think, “I’ve done this. I’ve done this over and over again.” And he stops thinking about what God has done, and he starts thinking about what he’s done, and not only that, but what he’s had to put up with. Let’s say it: what has he had to put up with? And he’s in a time of mourning. He’s mourning his sister, who just passed.
And so I’m just weaving that in there because I do think we need to humanize our heroes in the Bible. We need to understand that, yeah, guess what? If you were in that position, you probably would have done the same exact thing.
IX. Moses Makes It to the Promised Land 25:26
So where’s the hope here? Even if you live a great life, even if you’re the greatest hero in all of the Old Testament (Moses is the greatest hero in the whole Old Testament), you can still lose at the end. So, “Woe, you evil sinners”? Is that the message today? It’s part of the message. But there’s more, because with God there’s always more.
So God said, “You don’t get to see the promised land, because you took this into your own hands.” And man, if that was the only requirement for the promised land, I’m out. I have not been able to resist taking my own life into my own hands, time and time again. But there’s hope. Why is there hope? Because there’s another story. There’s a New Testament. I’m going to go to the New Testament story, and then we’ll end with how Moses dies.
There’s this thing called the Transfiguration, and it’s this moment where… let me say it this way: it is revealed that Jesus is the glory of God. He was always the glory of God, but the curtain is pulled back, and his apostles Peter, James, and John get to see Jesus in his glory. And who is standing next to him? Moses (Matt 17.1–3). And who got to see the face of God? Moses. And who got to be in the promised land? Moses. All it took was for him to die.
So yes, Moses didn’t get to get to the land of milk and honey, Canaan. The consequence of his action was that he didn’t get to get there. But God met him in death. When Jesus died on the cross, he said, “Come with me. We’re going to the promised land.” Praise God. And each of us, when we die, Jesus meets us and says, “Come with me. We’re going to the promised land.” That is the hope.
Now, I think he would have loved to go to Canaan. And so, man, don’t think that you are better than God. It is dangerous, and it will result in tragedy. He didn’t get to taste the land of milk and honey, and I am certain that was a very sad moment for Moses. But the Advent message is: prepare the way of the Lord, because Jesus is coming, even if time and again you have made the same mistake as Moses.
X. The Death of Moses 27:39
So let’s talk about Moses’ death, because I think it speaks to us today. This is in Deuteronomy chapter 34, beginning in verse 4. God takes Moses up on a mountain; that’s where we’re at.
4 And Yahweh said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, ‘I will give it to your offspring.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.” Deut 34.4
Every one of us, at some point in our life, has a moment where God, if we follow him, will let us see what he’s doing for our offspring. Let me phrase this a little differently. If you live your life according to the ways of the Lord, if you follow him every day of your life, then your offspring will benefit into the future, and you get to be aware of what God in his mercy has done in your life for your children and your children’s children.
Let me add a caveat. If you’re never married, if you never have kids, guess what? The whole people of God are Moses’ offspring in this story. He’s not saying “your sons.” He’s saying the people of God. And in the same way, when you’re a part of the body of the Lord, the people who come after you in the house of the Lord are your offspring. You get to take the blessings of being that grandfather, that grandmother, in the Lord with you, if you follow him, if you serve the church, if you walk in the ways of the Lord, if you pass it on.
And so what I’m saying here is that Moses’ death is the same as all of us. We don’t get to see the promised land in this lifetime. We get to live in the kingdom, as God has said: the kingdom of heaven is at hand. But most of us most likely (I’m putting some extra things here, because Jesus could show up tomorrow and the whole world would just be transformed), most of us die without seeing Jesus return and create the new heaven and the new earth, the Promised Land, capital letters all over the place. But if you live according to the ways of the Lord, you get to look and see what God is doing through your life and in the future.
And when you’re 21 years old, that doesn’t make a lot of sense to you. It’s easier to see what’s happening this weekend. But if you let him, God will change your perspective, and he will start to elongate your time frame, and suddenly a thing you do today is going to matter in a hundred years. The ways that you love people today could matter for eternity. And so the other call of Advent, besides preparing the way of the Lord in your heart, is, like I said, preparing the way of the Lord for the world. How do you do that, though? Well, you’ve got to love the people you’re with.
And so, as we think about Moses’ end, there’s this great line. It says his eye was undimmed and his vigor was unabated (Deut 34.7). That’s what I want to be when I die. Moses was 120 years old, but his eye was undimmed and his vigor was unabated. What did he do? He kept his eyes on Jesus. He kept his eyes on God, because if you look towards anything else, it will blind you. It will dim your eyes. He used his life force, his energy, to serve God, because if you serve any other master, it will suck the life out of you.
And so, on that happy note, we end. Our sermon today was saying: prepare the way of the Lord, and you will see the glory of God, today, next week, this Christmas. And prepare the way of the Lord for those around you by loving them well, because you will see generations of blessing based on what you do today. Amen.