Rev. Benjamin Kandt: Hello everyone.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: This is Pastor Benjamin.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, Orlando.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: At New City, we long to see our Father answer the Lord's Prayer.
Rev. Benjamin Kandt: For more resources, visit our website at Newcity Orlando.com.
Nadia Chong: Please join me in this prayer of illumination.
Nadia Chong: God of mercy, the covenant promises in your eternal word do not change.
Nadia Chong: Holy Spirit, enable us to respond to your gracious promises with faithful and obedient hearts through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Nadia Chong: And the people stayed in Kadesh, and Miriam died there and was buried there.
Nadia Chong: Now there was no water for the congregation, and they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron.
Nadia Chong: And the people quarreled with Moses and said, Would that we have perished when our brothers perished before the Lord?
Nadia Chong: Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness that we should die here, both we and our cattle?
Nadia Chong: And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place?
Nadia Chong: It is no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and there is no water to drink.
Nadia Chong: Then Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting, and fell on their faces.
Nadia Chong: And the glory of the Lord appeared to them, and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Take the staff and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron, your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water.
Nadia Chong: So you shall bring water out of the rock for them, and give drink to the congregation and their cattle.
Nadia Chong: And Moses took the staff from before the Lord, and he commanded him.
Nadia Chong: Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, Hear now, you rebels, shall we bring water for you out of this rock?
Nadia Chong: 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.
Nadia Chong: And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as the holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.
Nadia Chong: These are the waters of Meribah, where the people of Israel quarreled with the Lord, and through them he showed himself holy.
Nadia Chong: This is God's word.
Pastor Eric Stites: But um, no, I'm co-founder of Crosstown Ministries.
Pastor Eric Stites: Many of you know that, but uh again and again, there are always numerous new people here at New City as we continue to grow, though we preach on numbers.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um and uh so uh but one of the kingdom partners of New City, and so always want to take this opportunity to um say thank you because uh without New City there would be no crosstown ministries.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so uh thank you, thank you for your support as a kingdom partner, thank you for bringing snacks.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um thank you for those of you who've who volunteer, who come read with our students, all the things.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um as time goes on, we just want to continue to grow relationship uh here at New City.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so uh I just wanted to say uh thank you from the bottom of my heart uh for that.
Pastor Eric Stites: So um Numbers 20.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um when I read this passage, uh the question that comes to my mind first is um is the wilderness necessary?
Pastor Eric Stites: Uh we've been in this uh book, obviously, for the past uh several weeks, and uh you're in this wilderness and it just continues to go on and on, it seems like.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so is it necessary?
Pastor Eric Stites: And and if so, why?
Pastor Eric Stites: Um when you read this passage, uh there's a whole lot of tragedy, really.
Pastor Eric Stites: There's uh a lot of struggle, and and maybe you might even think, man, it's a little bit unfair uh the judgment that uh God has uh for Moses.
Pastor Eric Stites: So you might be sitting here and you feel a little bit like Moses.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um he's a leader, uh he's a he's a leader of God's uh people, but maybe you're a leader.
Pastor Eric Stites: Uh maybe you're a leader in a business, maybe you're uh a leader um in your uh home, maybe you're a leader at school.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um I don't know.
Pastor Eric Stites: But the reality is, like uh Moses, he he gets so much right.
Pastor Eric Stites: He led God's people out of Egypt.
Pastor Eric Stites: When they rebel, he's pleading with God to uh to on their behalf to have grace on them, and he's patient through most of their complaining and grumbling, and then he messes up this one time here, and boom, um God gives him a consequence, and it's a serious one.
Pastor Eric Stites: He's been wandering with the people since they left Egypt to enter the promised land, and now sorry, Moses, um you don't get to go in.
Pastor Eric Stites: So maybe that feels like you.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um I was on the phone with a friend this week when we were talking about the fact that leadership is this endless series of decisions that we make, and we might make 95% of those decisions right.
Pastor Eric Stites: And we get 5% wrong, maybe.
Pastor Eric Stites: And guess what everyone remembers?
Pastor Eric Stites: The ones we got wrong, right?
Pastor Eric Stites: Um, and that it causes a weariness.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um, maybe as a leader, you get angry from getting almost everything right, um, but that almost feels like you got nothing right.
Pastor Eric Stites: And being tired and being angry, as we can see from Moses, uh, is a dangerous combination.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um, you might be sitting here and you feel like the rest of the people who are with Moses sitting under his horrible leadership.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um been in the wilderness for 40 years.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um, you've got lots of uncertainty.
Pastor Eric Stites: You've been waiting to enter uh this promised land.
Pastor Eric Stites: You're always feeling like you're in need.
Pastor Eric Stites: There's always obstacle after obstacle after after obstacle, and it just doesn't ever feel like you're gonna get there.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so you grow cynical.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um maybe that's you.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um Chuck DeGroat wrote a book called Leaving Um Egypt.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um, and in this book, um, he describes the danger of forming an identity from your wilderness wandering.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um, he says that this can often happen happen around what we call trauma bonding.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um, it's a buzzword, right?
Pastor Eric Stites: But instead, what he said is that uh instead of the wilderness being a place along the way to a final destination, it just becomes the destination where we just complain about everything going on around us.
Pastor Eric Stites: And our identity is formed of this is just the way it's gonna be, forever and ever.
Pastor Eric Stites: And in that, there's this kind of somewhat veiled, halfway rebellious spirit toward God because he hasn't given you what you wanted, hasn't gotten you out of the circumstance, and so then we just distract ourselves with food and drink and social media and and all the things.
Pastor Eric Stites: And of course, the sad reality is that your wilderness becomes Egypt.
Pastor Eric Stites: So you traded one form of bondage for another, all while calling it freedom.
Pastor Eric Stites: So why the wilderness?
Pastor Eric Stites: Why the wilderness?
Pastor Eric Stites: Uh my wife and I went to California um this past summer to celebrate uh our 15-year anniversary.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um, thank you.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um we uh we flew into San Francisco and slowly made our way down the Pacific Coast Highway, eventually ending up in wine country.
Pastor Eric Stites: Now I'm not much of a wine drinker uh myself.
Pastor Eric Stites: I don't like appreciate the taste um the way that um others might be able to.
Pastor Eric Stites: However, um while we were here, uh I decided I'm gonna become an expert.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um I want to learn everything I possibly can.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um and and when you're there and you're driving, I mean, just everywhere you go, um, there's uh vineyard after uh vineyard, and they look a little bit um like this.
Pastor Eric Stites: Uh there's a picture that I took.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um my wife and I actually stayed on uh a vineyard, which was really cool.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so this was our view um just looking out.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so uh we would go to different places, and you know, they pour out all these uh tastings, samples of different wines, a few of the white, a few of the red, um, and then they explain it all to you.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so there were some things that surprised me about this whole process of making uh wine.
Pastor Eric Stites: The first thing is when you look out there um at that picture, even in my mind, when I thought of wine, I thought of green, luscious, uh everything around is well watered and all this type of stuff.
Pastor Eric Stites: And instead, I found out I was in a desert.
Pastor Eric Stites: I had no idea.
Pastor Eric Stites: The only green was the vineyard, was the vines uh of grapes.
Pastor Eric Stites: That was the only thing green.
Pastor Eric Stites: When you look at the ground, um, dry, rocky um soil.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so what I found out is that winemakers will intentionally make their grapes struggle.
Pastor Eric Stites: This is what they called it.
Pastor Eric Stites: Intentionally producing stressful situations on the grape uh produces higher quality fruit with deeper, more complex flavors, which ultimately leads, of course, to far superior and might I add, far more expensive uh wine.
Pastor Eric Stites: So instead of irrigating the vineyard and you know, all the things I thought in my head of this perfectly watered uh garden, um, and instead they actually decide not to water it.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um they'll they'll just wait for rain.
Pastor Eric Stites: If it comes, great, if it doesn't, uh they assume that the struggle is good.
Pastor Eric Stites: The survival mechanism uh forces the energy directly to the grape itself.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so it produces this better flavor, color, and aroma.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so the saying is true.
Pastor Eric Stites: The struggle of the vine makes better wine.
Pastor Eric Stites: Why the wilderness?
Pastor Eric Stites: Because God ordained it that way.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um, through our struggles, I don't understand.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um I wish there was a different way, I wish there was an easier way to make that better wine.
Pastor Eric Stites: But for whatever reason, it's through our struggle that he gives us the opportunity to sink our roots into something.
Pastor Eric Stites: And the question of numbers is will Israel sink their roots deep into him?
Pastor Eric Stites: Or will they sink their roots deep into their circumstances?
Pastor Eric Stites: Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10 about the wilderness.
Pastor Eric Stites: He says, These things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for us for our instruction.
Pastor Eric Stites: So let's let their wilderness example instruct our wilderness experience so that we can put our roots down deep into the truth of who God is.
Pastor Eric Stites: Let's allow the struggle of the vine to make the best wine.
Pastor Eric Stites: So, first, um, our first point is that the Lord's people complain, and that there is an allure of accusation.
Pastor Eric Stites: The Lord's people complain, who are these people?
Pastor Eric Stites: Well, um, as we enter into the story in this verse, at the beginning, we're in the fortieth year of the wandering through the desert.
Pastor Eric Stites: Mike Allen, a couple weeks ago here preached on Numbers 13 and 14, and this was the first generation that had uh all but died out at this point.
Pastor Eric Stites: But the reason that was the case is because it was a consequence for their disobedience.
Pastor Eric Stites: They were walking about into, they were about to walk into the promised land, twelve spies are sent out to check out this land, they all return.
Pastor Eric Stites: Ten of them say, hey, it's a really cool land, but also followed with a bunch of really big people and were scared.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so instead of going into the land, um uh they decide it's too much for them.
Pastor Eric Stites: And their disob the consequence for their unbelief was, hey, you get to wander.
Pastor Eric Stites: You get to wander in this desert.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so here we have the second generation about to enter in again to the promised land, and we find out that they deal with many of the same um issues.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so what's going on?
Pastor Eric Stites: Um, there's no water.
Pastor Eric Stites: And not just like a little bit of a problem.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um, there's none.
Pastor Eric Stites: There's no water to drink, it says, there's none for their livestock, there's none to grow food.
Pastor Eric Stites: This is a truly um desperate situation.
Pastor Eric Stites: Once again, not the first time this has happened.
Pastor Eric Stites: So when you go back to Exodus 14, right after Israel had been uh uh uh brought out of Egypt, there was no water, the people cry out to Moses, and God brings water in a similar way to how he does here.
Pastor Eric Stites: But we'll come back to that in a moment.
Pastor Eric Stites: What I want to talk about right now is what I would call the anatomy of complaint.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um, the anatomy of a complaint.
Pastor Eric Stites: You see, it all starts with a real need, the real thing.
Pastor Eric Stites: We don't have water, Moses.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um, but before they go to Moses, what happens?
Pastor Eric Stites: Clearly they spoke to each other because they got to the point where they assembled together.
Pastor Eric Stites: So I don't know, we don't know from scripture exactly what happened, but clearly there's some people who are getting together and say, hey, we got to go to Moses and tell them we need something.
Pastor Eric Stites: Some agitators in the midst, some leaders among them that had the ability to speak and get everyone together.
Pastor Eric Stites: And then Scripture says they assembled all of them together.
Pastor Eric Stites: This isn't just a little group of people, it's a lot of people.
Pastor Eric Stites: They assemble together, and it says clearly they set themselves in opposition to Moses and to Aaron, and it says they quarreled with Moses.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so they start working their way backward through their story.
Pastor Eric Stites: In verse 3, um, it says, Man, I wish we just died when our brothers had died.
Pastor Eric Stites: Do they even really know what they're talking about?
Pastor Eric Stites: So weighty statement to say that they wished they had died when their brothers had died.
Pastor Eric Stites: They continue to go backwards.
Pastor Eric Stites: Why did you even bring us into this wilderness, Moses?
Pastor Eric Stites: Then they go on and say, Why did you bring us up out of Egypt?
Pastor Eric Stites: Did you forget?
Pastor Eric Stites: This is the second generation.
Pastor Eric Stites: So these weren't even the ones who were in Egypt.
Pastor Eric Stites: They don't even know what it was to be in that type of bondage, and yet they take on the words of their previous generation as if they were their own.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so, um, why does this happen?
Pastor Eric Stites: Because they were the audience of their parents.
Pastor Eric Stites: So I want to take a few things away from this in the anatomy of a complaint.
Pastor Eric Stites: The first thing of this is never underestimate the power of our words, especially to those who are listening, especially to those who are under our care.
Pastor Eric Stites: And especially when those words uh tend to speak of the negative things.
Pastor Eric Stites: They'll be heard, they'll be understood, and they might even be believed.
Pastor Eric Stites: Even if those who you are speaking to haven't been through what you've been through.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so much so that we could be informing what someone believes about who God is, his very character.
Pastor Eric Stites: This is what was happening for Israel.
Pastor Eric Stites: Second generation was just a product of the first.
Pastor Eric Stites: So never underestimate the power of your words.
Pastor Eric Stites: The second thing would be never underestimate the power of how sin is passed down.
Pastor Eric Stites: Now, we all believe this because of Adam.
Pastor Eric Stites: We know good theology.
Pastor Eric Stites: Adam falls, we're all born with sin, all that type of stuff.
Pastor Eric Stites: Yes, I'm talking about that, but I'm talking about something more than that.
Pastor Eric Stites: I'm talking about the specific sin, the specific nature of the sin that you might be passed down.
Pastor Eric Stites: The second generation is rebelling in the exact same way the first generation was, taking on their words almost identically.
Pastor Eric Stites: And where did they get that from?
Pastor Eric Stites: From their parents.
Pastor Eric Stites: You see, whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, we're all a product of where we came from.
Pastor Eric Stites: Product of parents, a product of school, a product of church, or the lack thereof.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so listen, um, one of the most godly things that we can do is to raise our own self-awareness of where we came from.
Pastor Eric Stites: Uh, my father was an alcoholic, um, passed away six years ago.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so you better believe I must take that seriously.
Pastor Eric Stites: Not because I think I'm it's not even about the alcohol part.
Pastor Eric Stites: Maybe that's true.
Pastor Eric Stites: I just told you a whole story about going to wine country.
Pastor Eric Stites: Maybe I need to be careful.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um but that's not what I mean.
Pastor Eric Stites: What I mean is, what does that produce?
Pastor Eric Stites: What does that teach me about how to be a father?
Pastor Eric Stites: What does that teach me about how to be a husband?
Pastor Eric Stites: It didn't teach me much, but it did teach me some negative things.
Pastor Eric Stites: So I could either say, it doesn't matter.
Pastor Eric Stites: Or I could say, Let me blame the one who came before me, or I could raise my own self-awareness and say, What is this doing?
Pastor Eric Stites: And so to this day, still walking through, not as a victim of it, um, but seeking the healing from wounds from the only one who can heal those wounds.
Pastor Eric Stites: So never underestimate the power of past down sin.
Pastor Eric Stites: And finally, never underestimate the temptation to go back to Egypt.
Pastor Eric Stites: This is why Chuck DeGroat wrote an entire book on this.
Pastor Eric Stites: What I mean is we have the powerful ability in our mind to rewrite our narratives so that our past in light of our present somehow seems different.
Pastor Eric Stites: Israel was able to say that being in the in Israel in bondage and slavery for 400 years was better than being free in the wilderness.
Pastor Eric Stites: They were able to rewrite that narrative and then speak it freely to their kids, so much so that they believed it, not even having been there.
Pastor Eric Stites: Manna's raining down from heaven, feeding them.
Pastor Eric Stites: They have the presence of God with in cloud and fire, and yet they still said it was better back then.
Pastor Eric Stites: Sometimes our freedom doesn't look like how we want it to look.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so we look back on the bondage as if those were the good old days.
Pastor Eric Stites: So never underestimate.
Pastor Eric Stites: Never underestimate the power of your words and the power of sin to pass down and the power of the temptation to go back to Egypt.
Pastor Eric Stites: So, the anatomy of a complaint.
Pastor Eric Stites: Right after we complain, there's the allure of accusation.
Pastor Eric Stites: Right on the heels of complaining about something, once we've done that, we can get to the place where we get to accuse someone for what we're going through.
Pastor Eric Stites: So, why why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness?
Pastor Eric Stites: They cry out.
Pastor Eric Stites: Why have you made us come up out of Egypt?
Pastor Eric Stites: Who are they talking to?
Pastor Eric Stites: Moses and Aaron.
Pastor Eric Stites: What?
Pastor Eric Stites: Moses and Aaron didn't do this.
Pastor Eric Stites: Moses didn't cause this.
Pastor Eric Stites: The Lord led them into the wilderness.
Pastor Eric Stites: And that's because Israel cried out to them from bondage and said, Will you come free us?
Pastor Eric Stites: And he does it.
Pastor Eric Stites: Before this, they were in Egypt making bricks without straw under backbreaking tyranny.
Pastor Eric Stites: And then they have the audacity to say, Why did you, Moses, make us come up out of Egypt?
Pastor Eric Stites: Why are and then to add on to that, why are they walking around for these 40 years?
Pastor Eric Stites: Is that Moses' fault?
Pastor Eric Stites: No, it was them.
Pastor Eric Stites: It was their own sin.
Pastor Eric Stites: It was their own disbelief in what God was saying about going into the promised land.
Pastor Eric Stites: They believed the ten spies rather than God himself saying, This is the promised land.
Pastor Eric Stites: It is so tempting to accuse those in leadership.
Pastor Eric Stites: So why is complaining and accusation, why is this take root so easily?
Pastor Eric Stites: Because at its heart is contempt.
Pastor Eric Stites: Contempt is this fierce refusal to face your own brokenness and instead to turn and point the finger and blame someone else.
Pastor Eric Stites: We're just doing what's been done since the fall.
Pastor Eric Stites: Adam messes up, and when God comes to him and says, What did you do?
Pastor Eric Stites: He looks at his wife and says, It was her fault.
Pastor Eric Stites: And then what does she do?
Pastor Eric Stites: She looks at the serpent and says, Um, it was his fault.
Pastor Eric Stites: This is what we do to cover ourselves.
Pastor Eric Stites: And Israel was no different, right?
Pastor Eric Stites: It's their sin, but it's Moses' fault.
Pastor Eric Stites: And the same is true of us today.
Pastor Eric Stites: Behind all the complaining, behind the accusation, there's often a shame-filled person unwilling to take the covering off.
Pastor Eric Stites: But the invitation from the Lord in Scripture is always take the cover off.
Pastor Eric Stites: Bring the shame to him and to receive grace.
Pastor Eric Stites: Have your head lifted up and be redignified as being made in the image of God.
Pastor Eric Stites: You see, we need to hear all of this as a truly uh loving warning.
Pastor Eric Stites: Because the reality is, uh, in verse 13, uh Numbers lets us know that indeed Israel wasn't just quarreling with Moses and Aaron.
Pastor Eric Stites: It says they were quarreling with the Lord Himself.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so the issue is not between Moses and the people, but truly with all of God's people and with the Lord Himself.
Pastor Eric Stites: So why the wilderness?
Pastor Eric Stites: Why the wilderness?
Pastor Eric Stites: Chuck DeGroat says the wilderness is a necessary place where we are stripped of our arrogance, our self-righteousness, and our hypocrisy.
Pastor Eric Stites: It is the furnace of transformation.
Pastor Eric Stites: In other words, it's the struggle of the vine that makes the best wine.
Pastor Eric Stites: So will you let it be that?
Pastor Eric Stites: Will you let the wilderness be what God has caused it to be?
Pastor Eric Stites: Will you allow the things in you to be exposed?
Pastor Eric Stites: Will you take responsibility for the brokenness and the invitation to grow deep roots within him?
Pastor Eric Stites: So, first, the Lord's people, we love to complain.
Pastor Eric Stites: And there's an allure of accusation.
Pastor Eric Stites: But let's turn now to the second big uh person in the story, which is Moses and Aaron themselves.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um, the Lord's leaders respond.
Pastor Eric Stites: And they want revenge for the rebellious.
Pastor Eric Stites: Revenge for the rebellious.
Pastor Eric Stites: How did Moses and Aaron respond to the complaining and accusation?
Pastor Eric Stites: Well, they have an incredible response in verse 6.
Pastor Eric Stites: It says they simply turned from the face of the congregation back to the tent of meeting where God is, where they fell on their faces before the face of the Lord.
Pastor Eric Stites: Wow.
Pastor Eric Stites: I'm telling you what, I've been in leadership in different ways in a lot of different environments, and I don't respond like that.
Pastor Eric Stites: Right?
Pastor Eric Stites: When we're faced with these types of things, uh, what do we do?
Pastor Eric Stites: Let them have it.
Pastor Eric Stites: We would have tried to straighten the truth out, defend ourselves uh from the accusations, put them in their place, let them know you're really hard to lead.
Pastor Eric Stites: Don't you know that?
Pastor Eric Stites: Um we would have reminded them that, hey, you've been in this position before, remember?
Pastor Eric Stites: And remember, look how the Lord provided?
Pastor Eric Stites: On and on and on.
Pastor Eric Stites: That would have been uh my response.
Pastor Eric Stites: But instead, Moses and Aaron, they take it all in, they walk away, and they fall on their face before the Lord.
Pastor Eric Stites: That is leadership.
Pastor Eric Stites: Our culture today, um, in our world today, we are on a quest for what great leadership is.
Pastor Eric Stites: Just look at look at what's going on around us, right?
Pastor Eric Stites: Um, how divided we are in different ways.
Pastor Eric Stites: We want great uh leadership.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so we ask, is it is it wielding the largest sword to beat down the opponents?
Pastor Eric Stites: Is it confronting opposition to their face, belittling people, talking about how much bigger and better we are?
Pastor Eric Stites: Is it being the loudest in the room, having the best strategic plan, having the most charismatic personality?
Pastor Eric Stites: Um I'm not saying it's none of those things, but I know it doesn't start there.
Pastor Eric Stites: I know it starts with falling on our face before the Lord.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um, it's from this posture that uh we learn what we're supposed to do.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um, because it's in this posture that we have to listen.
Pastor Eric Stites: And sometimes we might speak, sometimes we might remain silent, sometimes we might be called to act, sometimes we might be called to wait patiently, sometimes we might be called to slow down, sometimes we might be called to move quickly.
Pastor Eric Stites: But great leadership is an ambassadorship.
Pastor Eric Stites: It's a representation we're leading as a representative of not ourselves, uh, but of God.
Pastor Eric Stites: Otherwise, you're leading as a representative of yourself, competing with God's glory, um, causing idolatry.
Pastor Eric Stites: So to have others give their worship to us rather than to God.
Pastor Eric Stites: But there's something in our world today, in our culture, and we love to make an idol of leadership.
Pastor Eric Stites: We're looking for somebody to make a way, to show us where to go.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um we're looking for someone to venerate.
Pastor Eric Stites: Let's clear from this story.
Pastor Eric Stites: If we can't venerate Moses, we should be very careful.
Pastor Eric Stites: Moses won't have any of it.
Pastor Eric Stites: Uh I'm sorry, God won't have any of it.
Pastor Eric Stites: The Lord won't have any of it because he is indeed the Lord.
Pastor Eric Stites: So, Moses and Aaron, they go and meet with the Lord and they get their direction from him.
Pastor Eric Stites: It says this, take the staff, this is the Lord speaking, assemble the people and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water.
Pastor Eric Stites: So, what does Moses do?
Pastor Eric Stites: He starts off so well.
Pastor Eric Stites: He takes the staff, he assembles the people in front of the rock, and he takes a deep breath, and he starts to speak, and you're hoping for the best.
Pastor Eric Stites: And what comes out?
Pastor Eric Stites: Hear now, you rebels.
Pastor Eric Stites: Shall we bring forth water from this rock?
Pastor Eric Stites: Moses, man, finally had enough.
Pastor Eric Stites: Can you blame him?
Pastor Eric Stites: I love the humanity of the Bible.
Pastor Eric Stites: It doesn't hold back.
Pastor Eric Stites: The accumulation of enduring so much from this people finally overflows in this angry outburst to the people.
Pastor Eric Stites: You've been rebelling for years.
Pastor Eric Stites: Remember the generation before you?
Pastor Eric Stites: They all had to pass away out here because of the same thing.
Pastor Eric Stites: You want water?
Pastor Eric Stites: Here you go.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so in anger, he reaches up his hand, it says, Um, with a staff in his hand, and he strikes the rock one time, bang.
Pastor Eric Stites: That wasn't enough.
Pastor Eric Stites: Strikes the rock a second time, bang.
Pastor Eric Stites: And water, it says, gushes out.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so you can almost feel the tension in Moses that he's been holding on to for so long.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um we have to wonder like, what does Moses walk away with?
Pastor Eric Stites: Does he does he feel relieved?
Pastor Eric Stites: Finally let him have it.
Pastor Eric Stites: Finally let go.
Pastor Eric Stites: Been holding that in for a long time.
Pastor Eric Stites: I don't know.
Pastor Eric Stites: I don't know exactly what was going on.
Pastor Eric Stites: But whatever we are thinking, it's all quickly washed away with the Lord's words back to Moses in verse 12.
Pastor Eric Stites: Because you did not believe in me to hold 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.
Pastor Eric Stites: What?
Pastor Eric Stites: He's done so much right, so much right for so long.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um how is this fair?
Pastor Eric Stites: So, what did he do wrong?
Pastor Eric Stites: Well, two things mainly.
Pastor Eric Stites: The Lord's command was to go in front of the rock and speak to the rock, but instead he spoke to the people and let them have it.
Pastor Eric Stites: The second thing was is he never said to strike the rock.
Pastor Eric Stites: Right?
Pastor Eric Stites: All he said was to speak to the rock.
Pastor Eric Stites: And the and the Lord interprets um what that means, which is that you didn't believe in me.
Pastor Eric Stites: So from our human eyes, this just doesn't seem uh fair.
Pastor Eric Stites: But in that moment of human frailty, of honesty, you could even argue it's justifiable frustration, he speaks.
Pastor Eric Stites: But the Lord let him know it's wrong.
Pastor Eric Stites: It was sin.
Pastor Eric Stites: And not only that, it was public sin because uh because of how he was leading uh God's people astray, and the Lord gives them a tragic consequence.
Pastor Eric Stites: Um it's wrong because Moses wanted revenge for the rebellion he didn't trust.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so then we move on in the story, and you don't hear from Moses.
Pastor Eric Stites: We don't really know uh what he thinks, all we hear is the consequence, and the story moves on.
Pastor Eric Stites: But uh Brian Chapel, in his sermon on this same text, um, helped me to see that we do actually hear from Moses.
Pastor Eric Stites: How?
Pastor Eric Stites: Well, who wrote the book?
Pastor Eric Stites: Moses.
Pastor Eric Stites: Moses wrote the book of Numbers.
Pastor Eric Stites: So Moses is telling on himself.
Pastor Eric Stites: This is Moses' confession.
Pastor Eric Stites: He didn't do it right.
Pastor Eric Stites: And he didn't just let it be known to the people there, he let it known for generations and generations to come.
Pastor Eric Stites: So we can read Moses today and realize he didn't do it right.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so in writing the passage, he doesn't seek to protect himself, he doesn't seek to defend his actions, he doesn't share how unfair all of this was, he doesn't tell everybody I got 95% of it right and only blew it 5% of the time.
Pastor Eric Stites: Doesn't do any of that.
Pastor Eric Stites: He simply says the story like it happened, including his motivation of his heart, how he failed in this moment, and then he sees himself as being uninvited from being able to go into the promised land after all he's been through, as simply a just action on behalf of the Lord, who Moses loved with his whole heart.
Pastor Eric Stites: It doesn't change that.
Pastor Eric Stites: You see, Moses demonstrated true leadership.
Pastor Eric Stites: He started down that road of complaint and accusation, but when contempt could settle in and he could blame others for his actions, he owned it and the tragic consequences that came with it.
Pastor Eric Stites: Even though Moses didn't believe God in that moment, he knows the truth of who the Lord is.
Pastor Eric Stites: And ultimately, this is what the struggle in the wilderness was for.
Pastor Eric Stites: It was for Moses, too.
Pastor Eric Stites: So that he might sink his roots deep into the truth of who God is.
Pastor Eric Stites: The struggle of the vine produces the best wine.
Pastor Eric Stites: The same was true for Moses.
Pastor Eric Stites: So finally, we have the people complaining and the allure of accusation.
Pastor Eric Stites: We have the leaders responding.
Pastor Eric Stites: Wanting revenge for the rebellion, but finally we see the Lord's holiness is displayed.
Pastor Eric Stites: That He gives grace for the graceless.
Pastor Eric Stites: So in verse 12 again, we hear, Because you didn't believe in me, speaking to Moses, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel.
Pastor Eric Stites: And through them it says that God would show himself holy.
Pastor Eric Stites: Holiness, not something we talk about a whole lot today.
Pastor Eric Stites: Kind of scared of the word, I think, a little bit outdated.
Pastor Eric Stites: Conjures up pictures of God maybe being angry, judging from on high, giving out consequences just because, even in this story, it could feel like, man, come on, couldn't you just give Moses a little grace?
Pastor Eric Stites: But quite simply, holiness is just God being set apart.
Pastor Eric Stites: It's that God has a glory all his own that he's not going to share with anyone else.
Pastor Eric Stites: It simply means that God is God, we are not.
Pastor Eric Stites: He's the creator, and we're the creature.
Pastor Eric Stites: He speaks, we listen, or choose not to.
Pastor Eric Stites: And at the end of the day, his holiness, no matter what, will be upheld.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so for Moses and all the Israelites standing there at the precipice of the promised land, about to go in, the Lord wanted them to understand this one thing.
Pastor Eric Stites: Just one thing.
Pastor Eric Stites: That despite everything that was going on, all that Moses did, all that the people did, he wanted them to know I'm still God.
Pastor Eric Stites: And that this promised land is a beautiful place.
Pastor Eric Stites: The land flowing with milk and honey and all the things that they wanted that they didn't have right now.
Pastor Eric Stites: But he wanted them to understand this and hear this.
Pastor Eric Stites: It means nothing if you don't have me.
Pastor Eric Stites: We want God to change all the circumstances, and sometimes without him.
Pastor Eric Stites: The wilderness is so that we might be close to him.
Pastor Eric Stites: You see, we struggle with the circumstance just like Israel, see what's all around and wondering why, God, aren't you changing all of this yet?
Pastor Eric Stites: Their time wandering about in the wilderness wasn't just to make them pay for what they'd done.
Pastor Eric Stites: It wasn't to make them delay their gratification and finally be able to come to the promised land.
Pastor Eric Stites: It was so they would learn how to depend on the Lord no matter what.
Pastor Eric Stites: They were so focused on getting to the promised land, they were forgetting who made the promise.
Pastor Eric Stites: And that being with him was enough, was sufficient.
Pastor Eric Stites: So as we read this story, it can be hard to see grace.
Pastor Eric Stites: It can be hard to see grace, but it's there.
Pastor Eric Stites: It can seem like the only thing there is brokenness and judgment, but instead, what we see is that the Lord displays his holiness in a very surprising way.
Pastor Eric Stites: In verse 10, look, if you can, Moses cries out, Here now, you rebels, shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?
Pastor Eric Stites: It says, and Moses lifted up his hand, struck the rock with a staff twice, and what?
Pastor Eric Stites: Water came out abundantly.
Pastor Eric Stites: And the congregation drank and their livestock.
Pastor Eric Stites: Grace.
Pastor Eric Stites: See, though the people are complaining, accusing, not taking responsibility for their sin, even though Moses is having his own lack of faith with this angry outburst, the Lord displays holiness with grace.
Pastor Eric Stites: He gives the people what they need, what they ask for, gives it abundantly, even though they deserve none of it.
Pastor Eric Stites: You see, sometimes we think grace is something that God gives as an answer to his holiness.
Pastor Eric Stites: He's so holy I can't get close to him, so I need grace.
Pastor Eric Stites: But what I actually want you to see here in Numbers 20 and throughout the whole book of Numbers, throughout all the Old Testament, before Christ, scripture shows us that grace is a display of God's holiness.
Pastor Eric Stites: It's a part of his holiness.
Pastor Eric Stites: It's what sets him apart that in Exodus, when Moses asks, Who are you?
Pastor Eric Stites: Show me who you are, God calls back the Lord, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression.
Pastor Eric Stites: This is who the Lord is.
Pastor Eric Stites: This is the character of God.
Pastor Eric Stites: How abundant is the grace.
Pastor Eric Stites: Guess what?
Pastor Eric Stites: There wasn't like 20 people here.
Pastor Eric Stites: You see, sometimes when we get this little picture of water flowing out of the rock, we get the like, you know, back in the day, the old felt boards, you know, and you got like the pasture and the little sheep and the people, and there's this cute little flowing, you know, river kind of trickling out of the rock.
Pastor Eric Stites: There were 600,000 people that left Egypt.
Pastor Eric Stites: Most commentators would agree there's at least two million people out here in the wilderness.
Pastor Eric Stites: This wasn't a cute little trickle.
Pastor Eric Stites: This was water flowing forth in abundance to water the entire congregation, it said, and all their livestock.
Pastor Eric Stites: This wasn't a little bit.
Pastor Eric Stites: This was lavish grace, abundant grace.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so what's going on with this rock?
Pastor Eric Stites: What is this thing?
Pastor Eric Stites: It's not the first time it showed up.
Pastor Eric Stites: In Exodus 17, there's almost this identical situation.
Pastor Eric Stites: The people need water, and they cry out to Moses.
Pastor Eric Stites: He goes to the Lord, the Lord tells them to go to the rock, and that he will stand before Moses, stand in front of the rock, and that Moses can strike the rock with his staff and water will flow.
Pastor Eric Stites: That's in Exodus 17.
Pastor Eric Stites: And that's why it makes sense in our story, man.
Pastor Eric Stites: Moses is just going back to what he did before, right?
Pastor Eric Stites: But so it almost seems unfair.
Pastor Eric Stites: But here's the difference.
Pastor Eric Stites: In Exodus 17, the Lord stands before Moses on the rock and tells Moses to strike the rock.
Pastor Eric Stites: You see, commentators would agree, in essence, the Lord is saying, As you strike the rock, you're striking me.
Pastor Eric Stites: There has to be sacrifice in order to bring about the grace of water.
Pastor Eric Stites: Despite all their complaint and disobedience.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so here in Numbers 20, the Lord commands Moses simply to speak to the rock.
Pastor Eric Stites: Why?
Pastor Eric Stites: Because he has already struck the rock.
Pastor Eric Stites: It need not be struck again.
Pastor Eric Stites: Grace will flow from this place.
Pastor Eric Stites: So Moses isn't just disobeying the Lord's command, he's also telling the Lord, that first time wasn't enough.
Pastor Eric Stites: I need to strike you again and again for grace to come.
Pastor Eric Stites: First Corinthians 10, if you don't believe anything of what I'm saying, let 1 Corinthians 10, let Paul interpret the Old Testament for you.
Pastor Eric Stites: Verse 1 through 4 says this for I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud.
Pastor Eric Stites: They all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was who?
Pastor Eric Stites: Christ.
Pastor Eric Stites: You see where things were a shadow of what was to come.
Pastor Eric Stites: No one could imagine what this was.
Pastor Eric Stites: Paul says, No, that rock was Christ.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so in John chapter 4, in Jesus' life, he's with the Samaritan woman at the well.
Pastor Eric Stites: He says, Sir, everyone who drinks of this water, speaking of the water in the well, will be thirsty again.
Pastor Eric Stites: But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.
Pastor Eric Stites: The water that I give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.
Pastor Eric Stites: So the woman said, Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.
Pastor Eric Stites: Jesus, the living water, the rock upon which the Israelites would get their water.
Pastor Eric Stites: We move fast forward through Jesus' life, and on the cross, Jesus cries out for the first time in the Gospels at the very end of the book of John.
Pastor Eric Stites: Guess what he says?
Pastor Eric Stites: I'm thirsty.
Pastor Eric Stites: You see, the one who suffered, who offered living water that wells up to eternal life is now thirsty.
Pastor Eric Stites: And in one final act of cruelty towards Jesus, the soldiers who were there didn't give him water.
Pastor Eric Stites: What'd they give him?
Pastor Eric Stites: Sour wine.
Pastor Eric Stites: And at that he bowed his head and it died and he died.
Pastor Eric Stites: It says a few moments later, Jesus' side was pierced, and not only did blood pour forth, but what else?
Pastor Eric Stites: Water from his side.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so in the sacrifice of Christ, in the blood that is poured out, there is also the water of life.
Pastor Eric Stites: The living waters that he spoke of to this unsuspecting Samaritan woman at a well were being poured forth to quench the world of its thirst.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so the rock that gave an abundant flow of grace-filled water in the wilderness would become the instrument of God's infinite grace by being struck on the cross.
Pastor Eric Stites: How many times?
Pastor Eric Stites: Just once.
Pastor Eric Stites: And it was enough.
Pastor Eric Stites: Bearing the sin of all of us, though we complain, though we accuse, though we go to contempt, though we want revenge for the rebellious.
Pastor Eric Stites: No, indeed, his sacrifice is enough to bear all of that sin.
Pastor Eric Stites: So this morning, I would ask you, where are you in the wilderness?
Pastor Eric Stites: Maybe you don't know this rock.
Pastor Eric Stites: Maybe you don't know Christ.
Pastor Eric Stites: And you may be wandering around in the circles of this life trying to quench your thirst with everything the world has to offer.
Pastor Eric Stites: I bet you're here this morning knowing it doesn't work.
Pastor Eric Stites: You're still thirsty.
Pastor Eric Stites: I assure you that Jesus stands ready with a holy grace just for you.
Pastor Eric Stites: Come to Him.
Pastor Eric Stites: You may be part of the Lord's people filled with complaints and accusations and all that shame-filled contempt.
Pastor Eric Stites: Take the cover off.
Pastor Eric Stites: Come to Jesus.
Pastor Eric Stites: Or you may want revenge for the rebel the rebellious, and Jesus offers you to lay aside your anger and your weariness and come to him.
Pastor Eric Stites: Because God's holiness truly is displayed in his lavish grace of living water.
Pastor Eric Stites: Our call to worship said this Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come buy and eat.
Pastor Eric Stites: Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Pastor Eric Stites: Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Pastor Eric Stites: Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.
Pastor Eric Stites: Incline your ear and come to me, hear that your soul may live.
Pastor Eric Stites: This morning I would invite you to come to the rock, the one who is the living water offered to you as a well up to eternal life.
Pastor Eric Stites: Let's pray.
Pastor Eric Stites: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, we come to you this morning.
Pastor Eric Stites: I want to be self-aware of all the ways that we can be just like Israel, where it's easy to look at them and say, How could they possibly complain and grumble over all that you had done for them?
Pastor Eric Stites: And yet we look at our own lives recognizing the apple hasn't fallen far from the tree.
Pastor Eric Stites: We do the same.
Pastor Eric Stites: Will you give us the grace of seeing our sin and taking responsibility for it?
Pastor Eric Stites: Um, but Jesus, you have not left us without hope.
Pastor Eric Stites: Jesus, thank you that you have been struck once for all time and once for all of us, so that we might come to you with your open arms and might receive grace, might receive forgiveness, might receive life.
Pastor Eric Stites: And so, Jesus, we come to you now, lifting you up as the one who is uh worthy of all of our worship, where we are tempted to put it in other places, um, Lord, just as the people of Israel were, um, we stand now wanting to uphold your holiness in a way that they might have missed it, Lord.
Pastor Eric Stites: Help us to see that your holiness is on display in the grace that you have given us.
Pastor Eric Stites: We thank you for this now.
Pastor Eric Stites: Spirit, will you seal upon our hearts the truth of your word?
Pastor Eric Stites: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
Pastor Eric Stites: Amen.