She Got Gift, Too

Description:

Exploring Miriam's life, this sermon highlights God's gifting to all, emphasizing spiritual maturity, compassion, and unity in using our unique gifts for His purposes.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Get some support from home. Am I right about it? Amen. Let's do our vision statement. If we can do that very quickly, let's put that up on the screen looking good. Look at that. Those are some good pictures. Amen. Amen. I know it was Alpha Phi Alpha. We're gonna pray for you on that one. Amen. I couldn't let it go. I couldn't let it go. Amen. Come on, let's read. We exist to help people become followers of Jesus who experience life change in community and make a difference. Amen. Amen. Amen. Want to be clear on that, and our mission statement and the series we're preaching is really aimed toward that ordinary faith for an extraordinary God. And I raise that because, again, I think a lot of times as Christians, we've been trained to think that only the super gifted, only the super educated, only the supernaturally endowed individuals are the ones that God uses. And prayerfully, we hope to show in this series that God is looking for availability. And if we're available, does anybody know God has a way of blessing you and enriching your life? And I think all of us want that. And so I want to invite our attention to our meditation text for this morning. And it's found in Micah chapter 6, verse 4. And uh if we can read that together, let's read. I brought you up out of Egypt. And I sent Moses to lead you, also Aaron and Marion. Amen. Say Miriam. Amen. The main text comes from Exodus chapter 2, verses 1 through 10. And here's how it reads the story of birth and preservation of Moses that would be Israel's deliverer. Now, a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. And when she saw that he was a fine child or a good child, she hid him for three months. When she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister, say Miriam, stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. Then Pharaoh's daughter went down to the Nile to bathe. And her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying. And she felt sorry or compassion for him. This is one of the Hebrew babies, she said. Then his sister, say Miriam, asked Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and get a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby for you? Yes, go, she answered. So the girl, say Miriam, went and got the baby's mother, Pharaoh's daughter, said to her, Take this baby, nurse him for me, and I will pay you. Won't he do it? So the woman took the baby and nursed him. And when the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter, and she became her son. And she named him Moses, saying, I drew him out of the water. I want to talk about she got gift too. She got gift too. Amen. During my final year in ministry in seminary, I was required to take a preaching class. I did so well that I was selected to preach in the school's chapel for that year. But you need to understand that for a student to preach in chapel, they first had to have majored in pastoring. Secondly, they have had to have been graded as one of the best preachers in the entire graduating class. I majored in Christian education, which immediately disqualified me from preaching in chapel. But how many of y'all know that ain't never stopped God on anything? So through a series of events, I was selected a first in the school's history to preach in chapel as a non-castorial major. Now, at the time, I was considered one of the best preachers in the school, and sadly, I'm confessing, I thought I was. But how many of y'all know God will correct your attitude, too? I'm just testifying today. And in one of my final classes, a wonderful sister in the faith preached her first sermon ever in that class. And when she finished, all of us were ready to turn in our preaching license. She did a mic drop from heaven. And in those, and in that moment, God was teaching me two things. The first is ministry is not about competition, but rather how we complement each other with our gifts for the greater advancement of the kingdom. It's not about who's the best, but it's about how we all gather together to give our best to make God look his best. Secondly, I also learned that my sisters got gift too. And I need to say that because sadly, we must admit there's still some tension. I'm not picking on Christ's community, but I'm talking about Christianity as a whole. There's still tension between men and women. As if one is better than the other. As if one is more gifted than the other. And it needs to be said that God does not love men more than women, nor does he love women more than men. God does not elevate a woman over the man because she has some special gift or skill that he didn't give the man, nor does he elevate a man over a woman because of her gender. Men have gifts. Men have gifts because God loves them. But please hear me well. She got gift too. Matter of fact, if I can give you my thesis statement, it's really for all of us. Ordinary faith embraces the gift that God has given us for his glory. In other words, I don't need to be worried about what God is doing in somebody else's life. I need to be worried about what God is doing in my life. I need to learn to trust God with the gift he's given me. And Lord, empower me with the to the best of my ability to work out what you've invested in me. And that's what I love about this text this morning, our meditation text, especially, that we don't get to tell God how he ought to distribute his gifts. Aren't you glad about that? Aren't you glad God didn't put salvation in the hands of your enemies? God didn't put gifting as well in the hands of individuals, but God decides who receives a gift. And Micah 6.4 indicates that along with Aaron, along with Moses, God also gifted Miriam as a leader of God's spirit. During a time when women's sphere of influence was confined almost exclusively to the family or domestic affairs. Here Miriam served the purposes of God. She was a confidant of Moses, the great liberator of Israel. She was one of the few women in the Old Testament who we come to know simply by the gifts that God had given her. She is known not as a wife, and that's not a bad thing. She is known not as a mother, but that's not a and that's not a bad thing. She is known as a leader for the liberation of her people. She got gift too. I just want to make a few observations to help us all, especially our sisters, to have ordinary faith that we might do something extraordinary for our extraordinary God. In our text in Exodus 2, this is the first time Miriam showed up in the biblical storyline. And we must remember that Miriam's story must be situated in the broader story of how Moses tells this story about Israel's deliverance. We may remember from last Sunday we talked about that meditation text where Paul says that God can take the least likely and do great things for his purposes. Well, that's what he does in Exodus 1 and 2. He takes the least likely candidates to bring about deliverance for his people. He chooses the midwives, two by the name, Shiprah and Pu'ah, who circumvent the monstrous decrees of Pharaoh to kill every male child that is born in Israel. And he uses them as a staple for deliverance. He uses Moses' mother, Jacobed, who, after taking one look at her son and said, This child is very good. Matter of fact, if you were to compare the Hebrew phrasing to what God said of creation, you discover they're almost the same. When God stepped back and looked at his creation, he said, Boy, I sure did good. That's what came out of the mouth of Jacobed, that this is God's creation. I wish I can pause right here because it's a word about how God is not just concerned about life in the womb, but God is also concerned about life outside the womb.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

I'll be the first one to say I'm pro-life in the womb. But you better hear me wail, my God is also pro-life for life outside the womb.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

And here Jacobed said, No, my God cares for life that is outside and living today. And so the child looks so good to her, she takes the child and puts him in a wicker basket and puts him in the Nile and floats him down the Nile. And God supernaturally protects him from the elements of the Nile, crocodiles and all kinds of elements in the Nile that should have taken his life. And maybe that's a word for some parent today, that when you keep on praying for your child, God has a way of protecting your child while others may struggle in the same thing. Maybe that's a word to some mother, maybe that's a word to some father. Keep on praying for your child.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Keep on trusting God for your child. Carry that Jacobed spirit that when you look at that child, you knew your child, that God had something special for your child.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

And that what he did for Moses, God would do the same for you. And so here, God reminds us in this text, uh, Miriam, who is a part of the great hall of heroes that were a part of the liberation of Israel here at the beginning of their story. And like her colleagues, she also serves God's purpose in that effort. And so, what I want to do is just share a few observations of ordinary faith from this great example in Miriam, this wonderful follower of the Lord. Number one, the first thing we notice is that Miriam was a woman of compassion. She had compassion. And the word Miriam cared, because verse 4 says in chapter 2 that this sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to Moses. That is, as her oldest, as the older sister, who never have children. The text never records anything about Miriam having children. And yet she has a mothering spirit and she cares for Moses. She watches over him like that father when he was looking for his son that had gone prodigal, that had left him. Miriam is also waiting to see what happens to Moses. And in a word, she has compassion. And compassion simply means we got to care for those who can't care for themselves. Compassion means we got to fight for those who can't fight for themselves. Compassion means we got to lift up those who cannot lift up themselves. And ordinary faith has compassion. And I need to say that because we live in a world that's quickly moving to a posture of anti-emphy and anti-compassion. That is, if you show any care of concern for the least, there must be something wrong with you. And I say it like this: if compassion is wrong, then Jesus was wrong. Because one day he looked at us and realized we couldn't help ourselves. And he came to this earth and died on a cross and he saved those who couldn't save them. I'm thankful that God was compassion for me, show compassion to me. And here Miriam has compassion for her brother. But then also, too, she doesn't just show some emotion of compassion, she actually puts some action with it. And here, Miriam, she tries to work the system and move Pharaoh's daughter to create this opportunity by which Jacobed can nurse her own son. There's a sense that Miriam is resourceful. She sees the opportunity and she takes advantage of it for the benefit of her brother and her mother. And it's a word that we have to never underestimate what theologians call God's divine ironies. In other words, God has a way of taking what may be our destruction and using it for our development. God can take what should be something that kills us, and he'll turn around and use it to make it bless us. And that's exactly what God does here. Here the Jacob puts her child in a basket, sends him to the Nile, the place of destruction, the place where little Hebrew boys were being drowned on a daily basis. And yet now God turns it around, delivers Moses out of the Nile, and then forces Pharaoh to finance the nursing of the child that should be dead. Does anybody know God of doing it? Matter of fact, I said it like this. Moses was sent to the grave in the Nile, and God delivered him from it. And God years later would turn around and destroy the entire Pharaoh's army in the same Red City, which shows his power to turn things around. Don't ever underestimate God's power of divine irony. Number one, we see her compassion. But then number two, which always comes with gifted people, we see that Miriam also struggled with conflict. She struggled with conflict. And here we jump to Numbers chapter 12, in which her great compassion does not exempt her from family conflict. I need to read the text to us. It's one of those texts we don't like to read, but we need to deal with it. Numbers chapter 12, verse 1 and 2. Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife. For he had married a Cushite. He had married a Cushite. He had married a Cushite. He had married an Ethiopian woman. Okay, he had married a black woman. And Aaron and Miriam didn't like it. But tell your neighbor, that wasn't a real issue. That was a mess. But let me pause right there. If racism was wrong, then how many of y'all know racism is wrong today? And God did deal with it. God did deal with it. He did deal with it. Racism is wrong no matter what form it comes into. But understand, this is just subterfuge. This is uh unnecessary stuff that Aaron and uh Miriam erased. The issue is in that second part where it says, has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Hasn't he also spoken through us? There's the real issue. And this is a word about what happens with gifting. Gift does not exempt us from conflict. Marian raised it. Aaron raised it. You ain't the only one God speaks through. Can I say it like Marion said it? Matter of fact, I was the one that wiped your little behind when you couldn't even take care of yourself. Who you think was watching over you when you was in the, and now you're gonna forget where you came from, like you think you better than all of us. Can't say amen, just say out. Gift does not exonerate us from conflict. Let me say this, because a lot of times a whole lot of us are very gifted, but we think that whatever God calls us to do, and this can be in anything, not just ministry or church, it can be a venture, it can be in work, it can be in some volunteer capacity. We think that somehow it must be God if it's conflict free. And yet, time and time again, from Genesis to Revelation and even through human history, God's greatest leaders have always had some conflict. The writer here says, and I the writer here of Proverbs 27, 17 captures the best. He says, as iron sharpens iron, so also one person sharpens another. And that's how it ought to work. When two gifted individuals come together, they ought to sharpen one another. But you know what happens more often than not? Instead of sharpening one another, we create sparks with one another. And and what it what God does is here's what he's doing: God allows the conflict to teach us to work with gifted people, to teach us all to work together. I gotta read verses three and four. I'm still blown away every time I read this. So in verse one and two, Miriam and Aaron front Moses on Sunday morning. It's a Sunday morning church service. Everybody can see. And Miriam and Arian come up to Moses probably after he finished preaching. Don't try this in Christ's community. Probably after he preaching and says to him, Who ordained you? What makes you think you the only one God has spoken through? And I'm just I'm just being archy right now. I I wish I could say it like I want to, but I would have said no to the no, no, you ain't doing that up in here. But look at how Moses responds. Watch this. Blows my time now, every time I see it. Verse 3. Now Moses was very humble, a very humble man. More humble than anyone else on the face of the earth. At once the Lord said to Moses, Aaron, and Mary, come out to the tent of meeting, all three of you. So it's one of those mama daddy meetings. Come, come to Jesus meeting they had. Let me read again. I don't think you caught it. Now, Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth. And at once the Lord said to Moses, Aaron and Miriam. Did y'all catch it? Miriam and Aaron fronted Moses on Sunday morning. Then the Bible, the narrator said, Now Moses was more humble than any man on the earth. Then the Lord spoke up. Did y'all get it? Do I need to say it one more time? Mirian and Aaron fronted Moses on a Sunday morning on YouTube for everybody to see. And Moses didn't say a mumbling word. Watch this. Humility is not weakness. Humility is knowing when to speak up and when to shut up, so God can speak up on your behalf.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Moses was humble, not in the sense he became a doorman, but he walked so close to God, he knew the situation was bigger than him.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

I need to let God handle this thing. How many of y'all know the Lord handled this thing? And he told him, he said, okay, I'm gonna clear this up right now. He said, Now I do speak to prophets, I speak in visions. And I speak in dreams. But now my servant Moses, I don't talk to y'all the same way I talk to him.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

I talk to him face to face. Matter of fact, I don't even reveal my form to him. He sees me as I am. When God speaks up for you, you ain't ever gotta fight your own battle.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Well, Pastor, what are you trying to say? Here it is. Your spiritual maturity is more important than your spiritual gifting. The problem is we want to grow in our gifting while we diminish in our maturity. And the reason why God allows some things to happen in our lives, He wants us to grow at the same rate with our gifting and our maturity. And God was trying to use this situation to show Miriam and Aaron what it means to be spiritually mature. Pastor, how do you know that? Because God judged this situation. And we may not like it. But when God speaks, he's not looking for a committee, he's not checking the approval ratings, he just does it because he's God. And like I tell folk all the time, if you don't like the way God did it, then go get go go create your own universe, go create your own earth, and you can do it any kind of way you want. But in the meantime, as long as God is God, He's gonna do it His way. So He judges Miriam, and I know some people have an issue with that. The reason being in the Hebrew, Miriam is always the one first. Implication, she's the one that led the group. So God always deals with the leader. But then also, watch this. When he judged Miriam, who was the first one to pray for her? Moses. She fronted him publicly, pretty much demeaned him in front of the congregation. God spoke up. Because for some of us, if God spoke up on our behalf, we'd have been like, she got what she deserves. You know, I ain't. Hey. Everybody knows I'm the man around here. Don't even try to. You know who in charge of this thing. That's not what he did. He prayed for her. Matter of fact, he said, we're not gonna move this camp until she's completely made well. Because she is also gifted. Hear me well. Sometimes the gift ain't about you rising up. Sometimes the gift is about how God is shaping me into a true follower of Christ. And the conflict doesn't mean anyone has done anything wrong. It doesn't mean anything bad. But God is in it to shape and make us. More importantly, God is in it to teach us how to work together. To teach us how to appreciate one another. How to lift up one and celebrate one and encourage one another. Teaches us that we all come under somebody's authority. And so I'll give it to you like this. And so, uh, y'all know I'm a huge Laker fan, right? Laker fan, sorry ladies, I gotta use a Laker illustration, amen. But a huge Lakers fan, and so uh Amazon Prime has a documentary that they did on the man, Jerry West. The logo. He's called the logo because it's his image that's the silhouette for the NDA logo. And while David Stern was commissioner of the NDA, they wouldn't admit that the logo was Jerry West. It was only after Adam Silver became the commissioner that he came out and admitted, yeah, Jerry West is the logo. So they did a full documentary on him. And while he was the general manager for the Los Angeles Lakers, he was general manager at the time that Shaq and Kobe were on the team. And Shaq is in the documentary and he testifies. He said, Yeah, me and Kobe, we didn't get along. We were really gifted. I thought I should have been the alpha dog. He thought he should have been the alpha dog. He said, but from time to time, he said, Jerry West would hear about all the conflict and how we weren't talking, and he'd call us to the office. And he said, I remember going up to his office, felt like I was going to the principal's office. Like he was getting ready to straighten us out. And he did. And he said, I wish I can share some of the words he shared, but then this recording wouldn't make it in public if I did that. He said, But here's what me and Kobe learned in those sessions with Wes. Because we had so much respect for someone who was so much greater than us, we were able to learn to work with each other. You see, a lot of times we didn't like each other. And many times we still wouldn't have some sparks. But when Jerry West called us in, and because he was such a great legend, because he was such large, he was so much larger than us, we humbled ourselves and we learned to work together. What am I trying to say? I'm saying, listen, when it comes to ministry, when it comes to our gifting, because the one who has called us and gifted us is so much greater than us, it ought to cause us to try to work together. It ought to cause us to be a little bit gracious with one another because of the one who has set the example before us. She had to learn to work through some conflict. Let me give you the last one. But then finally, she was also a person who can inspire confidence. Because Shay, she was a worship leader. And we find that in Exodus chapter 15, verses 19 through 21. After God brought Israel through the Red Sea and drowned Pharaoh's army, the Bible said they had a worship service. And I mean they had a testimony time. And they testified to how God had brought them through and defeated Pharaoh's army and drowned them in the Red Sea. And Miriam was at the head that was leading the praise. Look what it says in verse 19, Exodus 15. When Pharaoh's horses and chariots and horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought the waters of the sea back over them. But the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground. Then Miriam, the prophet Aaron's sister, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women followed her with timbrels and dancing.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

And Miriam sang the song, Sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted, both horse and driver, he has hurled in the sea.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

In other words, Miriam understood that listen, you can have faith, but you need some inspiration for your faith. That when you have an opportunity, when you know what God has done, that's the moment for testimony, y'all.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

That's the time to truly worship God. It's one thing to talk about what he's done in the past. But when you know God did something in your present, does anybody know that's when you gotta stop and say, wait a minute? I came to the house of the Lord to give thanks. If it had not been for the Lord on my side, where would I be? Is there anybody in here that can testify you weren't at the Red Sea? But you big in your own Red Sea, isn't you? And God brought you to Mm-hmm. But God bless you and ha. Fabi was at the Red Sea, but God brought you to Mimha. It's a little bummer here to get the test of. And because he's gonna memory, I come to bless his memory. I'll come to see his brazen. I'll give him love. He is good. His mercy and good for all time. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

Miriam was a leader in worship, led the people to build their faith with a testimony for what God did on their behalf. Let me close with this. And this is for all of us. One commentator said it so well. The whole story rests on this one issue. For every parent with family and kids, you understand this. My wife's family, they they take Christmas very, very seriously. Her and her two sisters, and I can see it with growing up as kids. Also in my family and many other families take Christmas very seriously, particularly the bigger families. Two, three, four children in the family. And what happens in those families is that those parents, when Christmas comes, they spend part of Christmas, maybe even a year, buying their kids gifts. And when Christmas comes, they distribute the gifts. Now, when they distribute the gifts, they don't give each child the exact same gift. Rarely is that the case. Maybe sometimes, depending on the gift. But for the most part, they don't give gifts that are exactly the same. No, they give gifts based on what they know that child would love. They give gifts based on what they know that child needs. They give gifts because they uniquely understand the gift. And nine times out of ten, at least it used to be that way. I don't know how it is now. Nine times out of ten, most kids are content with what they get from their parents. Because they just appreciate that their mama and their daddies gave them something at Christmas. Well, you know, that's the same thing when it comes to gifting in God's kingdom. Our God knows us better than we know ourselves. Don't trip because he doesn't give you the same gift as he gives me. But oh, he gives all of his children gifts. And the fact that he gives us gifts, we ought to give thanks, y'all. That he loves us enough and we ought to appreciate him for the gift that he's given. Tell two people she got gift to. Tell somebody else he got gift to. All of God's children got gift. Give the Lord a hand clap of praise. Here we go. Let's prepare our hearts for the Lord's.