Moses' Wish [Part 1]

Pastor, author and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. Sometimes it's just this simple. It's just change the definition of who you're fighting against.

Just change the game. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in our series called Moses, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It'll be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries.

So as you listen to today's message, we encourage you to go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. I always like to start every message by asking, are you ready for some good news? Because there's so much bad news in the world that we hear. And the word gospel means good news.

And also, there's something that happens when you kind of ready your heart by saying yes. And I'll leave it up to you whether you want to do so in an exuberant and enthusiastic way or not. Are you ready for some good news? Jesus is delighted to share his own life with you. His own joy with you. His own spirit with you.

He is delighted to take of that which should been exclusively reserved for him and share that rich endless blessing with you. We're in a series on Moses. And Moses has many great leadership moments in his life. Moments where he has raised a staff, a Red Sea has parted, and millions of people have walked through on dry land. He has had moments where he has lifted his hands in prayer. And when he prayed, the people prospered in battle. And when he quit praying, they would start losing the battle. He has had moments in which he has encountered God on the mountaintop alone, received the word of God. He has seen God pass by in his glory. And Moses has many, many moments that have established him as one of the greatest leaders of all time. But the story which we read today, it could be overlooked, this little moment.

But I highlight it today because I think it's Moses' greatest leadership moment. It's in Numbers chapter 11. That's the fourth book in your Bible, Numbers chapter 11. Once again, the people have been complaining this time that they have no meat like they had when they were slaves in Egypt.

Amazing how you can look back on slavery, and it can seem appealing how distorted the heart becomes. And the people are murmuring. And Moses is weary of all of this. And God is, in Numbers chapter 11, going to pour out his spirit not only on Moses, but upon 70 other elders. And this is the story we pick up reading in Numbers chapter 11, verse 16.

Numbers 11, verse 16. Then the Lord said to Moses, gather for me 70 men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them, and bring them to the tent of meeting. And let them take their stand there with you.

And I'll come down and talk with you there. And I'll take some of the spirit that is on you and put it on them. And they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it yourself alone. And say to the people, consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat, for you have wept in the hearing of the Lord.

And then jump up to verse 24. So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord. And he gathered 70 men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tent.

This is the portable kind of tabernacle, the tent of meeting. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the 70 elders. And as soon as the spirit rested on them, they prophesied, but they did not continue doing it. Now two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad and the other named Medad, and the spirit rested on them. And they were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent. And so they prophesied in the camp. So these are two men that had been appointed as elders and were supposed to go to the tent of meeting, this portable tabernacle, but they didn't.

They stayed in the camp. And nonetheless, the spirit had come upon them. And they're prophesying now just in the midst of the camp. Verse 27, and a young man ran and told Moses, Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp. And Joshua, the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth said, my Lord, Moses, stop them. But Moses said to him, are you jealous for my sake?

Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put his spirit on them? And Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp. I'm the youngest of three boys, and it has been told me numerous times that when I arrived home as a newborn, fresh from the hospital, my middle brother, Mark, who would have been two years old at the time upon seeing me, said, why did we have to get him? And it has been pointed out that they've been trying to figure that out ever since. Two years old, why do we have to get him? And there's a lot in that little toddler's statement because by the time he was two, he'd already figured out this world, that in this world, there's limited time, limited resources, and limited attention that you can receive, that the parents have limited time and resources, and now a third thing has come into the house that is likely to consume some of that scarce resource of parental time, affection, and not to mention toys that will be played with and other things.

Why did we have to get him? See, he had figured out that in this world, that because things are scarce, that if you get something special for yourself, then you need to not only hold onto it, but you need to leverage it so that you can make something out of it. What I'm saying is what we've learned is if you have some special skill, then don't tell everybody else how to do it, but leverage that to make an income because you can do something that other people can't do. It's like saying the magician doesn't give his secrets away because you want, if you have something special and magical about who you are, then you can certainly leverage that.

Whatever you do, don't share it. So here we come into this moment in Moses's life where Moses has been the man. Moses is the man of faith and power and wonder working miracles and the man who meets with God, the man upon whom God's spirit rests. We come to this scene in which Moses is so tired and weary from all these complaints from all the people. The Lord says, I'm going to give you a wonderful gift. I'm going to pour out my Holy Spirit upon 70 elders as well.

They're going to experience my presence. And so it happens that they are experiencing God in ways similar to the way that Moses had experienced God. But Joshua comes running and he assumes that when Moses hears about this, that other people are prophesying, that Moses will tell them that they have to be silenced.

They have to stop all of this. How shocked Joshua must have been at Moses's response. He said, are you jealous for my sake? He said, would that all of the Lord's people prophesied and that he'd put his spirit upon them all. In other words, it's like Joshua was saying, Moses, stop them.

Aren't you afraid that if other people start experiencing the spirit, that something's going to happen to your leadership? And it's like, Moses said, no, I'm not worried about that. It's like Joshua was saying, but aren't you afraid that they're going to try to take something from you? No, Moses says, I'm not worried about that. It's like Joshua was saying, aren't you afraid they're not going to prophesy as well as you, that they might get some revelation that you hadn't had before.

Aren't you worried about that? Moses said, no, I'm not worried about that. And all it goes until finally Joshua must break through to him that something extraordinary is going on here in Moses's leadership, that he not only is not threatened by the fact that other people are experiencing the anointing of God, but he is delighted that it's happening and wishes that everybody would experience the same thing.

I wish everybody would be filled with the Holy Spirit. And I want to show you today first at sort of a more natural level, just how, as we think about this one moment in Moses's leadership, how it points out some corrective thinking about how we view competition, how it is that we look upon others and look upon our life. And I want to show you sort of in the natural, what a beautiful thing was going on in Moses's heart. But then I want to show you what really is the heart of the matter, what it is that Moses sees that Joshua didn't see. And then finally, and most importantly, I want to show you how all this points to Christ. Because the author of Hebrews in chapter two refers to Moses, but says Jesus is the superior Moses.

So everything you see in the life of Moses is foreshadowing something about Jesus. So we have some extraordinarily good news, wonderful, powerful, good news. The Gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.

When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues.

Here once again is Alan Wright. Okay, first just think about this with me. And this is a little bit more in the natural sense of things, just what's going on in the character of Moses and how this is so important also for us.

Just some simple principles here. But first is to say, Moses was a profoundly secure human being. He had experienced so much of God. He had been with God. So many wonderful things had happened with him. He had spoken the word of the Lord so many times that that sense of inward wealth transcended any notion of competition with these elders.

When you have enough inward wealth, then things that might bother somebody else don't bother you. I always chuckle the story I heard years ago of an older guy who was in a big luxury car, big old thing. And he was slowly trying to begin to turn into the last remaining parking place in the shopping center. And as he was trying to pull in, some youngster in a compact car just darted in and stole the parking place. And the young guy gets out and looked at the old man. He said, sorry, you got to be young and quick to do that, Pops. And without blinking an eye, the older guy just kept on pulling into the parking place with his big old luxury car. And he just kept pulling in until he mushed that compact car and shoved it up over the median and out of the way. And the old man got out of the car and dusted himself off and winked at the boy and said, and you got to be old and rich to do that, Sonny.

If you got enough, you can do some things that other people can't do. Moses was not operating out of a sense of inward lack like I have got to be the special one because he had such a deep inward security. The idea here is that because Moses had so much of an encounter with God, it didn't threaten him that somebody else did. When Anne was, my wife's a little girl, this is one of the famous stories that's told. I may not get every detail of this right, but I believe that the family was in the car and I don't know who was driving, but there was a policeman that pulled them over and there was a traffic citation.

And as the policeman left and everybody has that frustrated feeling of, oh boy, I got a ticket, like that. And after a little while, Anne just piped up a little girl and she said, well, I'm not inviting him to my birthday party. The reason that story is so funny is because it would have been hard to explain to little Anne that he doesn't want to come to your birthday party. It's sort of like, if you're going to give a dinner party and you're thinking about who to invite, let me just go ahead and let you know that the President of the United States, if you don't invite him, his feelings are not going to be hurt because he's already invited to so many parties that he can't go to them. So he's going to be okay if you don't invite him.

He's not going to get all upset. When I was just out of college, I did two years of youth ministry, and the hardest part in the youth minister's job is really the summertime when you take all these trips. When you are responsible for a group of young humans and you need to bring them back safely to their parents, and in the midst of it, make sure that they have a wonderful encounter with Jesus, and you plan all of this, and you take the trip, and the bus breaks down, and the sun beats on you, and you're so on with all of this. At first summer of youth minister, after all those trips, and we got to August, and I'm just worn out with it all, and a seventh grade girl came to me, and she said, you are so lucky. I can't stand you.

You're so lucky. I said, I am? She said, yeah, you get to go on all the trips. See, if somebody had said to me, Alan, we're not going to let you go on the fourth of the five trips, it wouldn't have hurt my feelings.

I already had plenty of trips, right? Okay. It didn't hurt Moses's feelings that somebody else was encountering God. He's too deeply secure and inwardly wealthy for something like that to bother him.

He had been used by God to raise his staff and watch a Red Sea part. Why is he going to be threatened that somebody else gets a little taste of prophecy? Inward wealth transcends spirit of competition. Secondly, just kind of talking about the natural here, that wisdom transforms competition.

That the wise person doesn't make enemies out of people that are supposed to be on your same team. These were the people that Moses had appointed. These are the people that God said were going to help Moses. These are the people that he wanted to be alive in the power and the unction of God.

They weren't the enemy. There's a natural competition that emerges between fathers and sons. It manifests itself and my little boy, he always wanted to wrestle, so we'd get down onto the carpet and just wrestle. There's something that's good in that a father and a son just wrestle. Of course, the father, I could have at any moment, crushed the little toddler, but the father doesn't crush the toddler. It's just letting the toddler press against the father. I'll make you stronger by being able to press against me a little bit.

There's something that is sort of natural about that, but occasionally when a father misunderstands this and starts thinking that the child is the opponent, then something terrible happens. I was down at one of our outreach events on a Saturday afternoon a few years ago at the Bethesda Center for Homeless. We had a tent set up.

You could come over and receive prayer. During the bit of time that I was there, a man named Jimmy came over and I got the opportunity to talk to him. He's a sweet man. He told me not only that he needed prayer, but he told me his story. Jimmy had been a machinist. He'd been an expert welder. Things had gone horribly wrong for him and now he's homeless.

I said, well, what happened? He said, well, my father was the kind of man who never told me he was proud of me, never told me he loved me, and he was always competing against me. He said the competition was always to see who was making more money. My father always wanted to compare how much he was making to how much I was making. He said, of course, it was hard to make as much when I was young, but then I really got good at welding and I was making a lot of money. He said for a period of time I was beating him. He said, but then he got a promotion and he was making more money than I was and he started belittling me about this and he started writing me all the time about it. I didn't know how to make any more money. Finally, I just sold drugs.

I was incarcerated because of this. Ever since I've been out, I've not been able to get on my feet and therefore he was homeless. How confused of a dad is that? Ever feel like something's holding you back, as if you lack an important key that could change everything?

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That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Alan, what's our takeaway here with Moses's wish?

And in the story here, we're putting a bookmark of this prisoner. Well, you know, when we see that kind of sad competition between a father and a son, it's just missing the whole essence of what love and fatherhood really is all about because you want the best for someone else when you really love them. And so when Joshua comes to Moses and says other people are prophesying, and Moses is like, are you jealous for my sake?

He said, I wish everybody would prophesy. It's just one of these moments of leadership that is just so profound because until you come to that point where you're so secure that you're not threatened by somebody else's gift, somebody else's giftedness, you've not really come to that deep place of security in Christ. And this is wisdom. And it changes the way that you think about life.

It changes the way you think about competition. It is a beautiful picture. And I think that Joshua learned something that day. And the goals of Moses were being fulfilled. And so he was glad about that. And all of this, ultimately, Daniel prefigures Christ. He's the greatest leader in human history. And he was the one who actually said, you'll do greater things than I've done. So the nature of God is that his glory is not diminished when his children flow in his own power and mercy.

Instead, it enhances his glory. And there's something for us all to learn in that. Now, if you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching, delivered right to your email inbox free. Find out more about these and other resources at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.