3 Lessons the Church can Learn

What are three lessons the Church can learn from the story of the Exodus?

The Boxing-Ring Mentality

Exodus 4:10

When God approached Moses, Moses didn’t see himself fit for the journey God was calling Him to. One of the biggest historic moments in the Bible was about to begin, and here Moses argues his inability to commence the journey, let alone lead it into fruition. God wrestles with Moses’ mindset throughout chapter 3-4 and preaches into Moses until Moses could no longer ‘get another word in.’

The lesson is in God’s fight between Him and Moses’ mind. Moses’ questions aren’t exactly, “Yes God, how do you plan on doing this?” There are massive undertones of doubt in the way he questions God. Moses had an outlook over himself that was so deep that it even blinded him to the ability of God. God didn’t condemn Moses but rather He recognized that there was a mentality needing to be wrestled with. We all have beliefs over ourselves that need ironing out, I’ve never told a person ‘God loves you’ and that actually solve their mindset of feeling unloved. Outlook-restoration requires a battle – sometimes even if it’s God directly speaking to us.

For example; it is important as a Church to cultivate an environment of respect and trust towards leaders, but simply judging, labeling, brushing aside somebody for displaying doubt, curiosity or lack of trust in the leaders or themselves is the opposite of how God handles that. God welcomed Moses’ doubts, God encouraged Moses, God revealed more of himself to Moses. If God isn’t above explaining himself then neither is the Church. There is a firm culture in church about trusting and submitting to authority, but simply stating that alone as a way of enforcement won’t work for the Moses’ that walk into the Church and such response could in turn cause damage.

Moses’ questions frustrated God towards the end of chapter 4. Explaining the obvious to someone who doesn’t need to see the bigger picture is frustrating, but God answered Moses and sculpted yet again another leader that would be remembered forever. So the lesson in this is that in some cases, in order for the Church to develop a ‘Moses,’ doubts, mistrust needs to be wrestled with, not brushed aside or judged.

The swiss-army-knife Leader

Exodus 18:17-24

Throughout the story of the Exodus, Moses is receiving instruction from God on how to orchestrate Gods plan. Moses is carrying a heavy weight of leadership with no delegation of responsibility to the men around him. One day when Moses was busy helping the people solve disputes, Jethro (Moses’ father-in-law) approached Moses and challenged him to delegate some of the work to other faithful, trustworthy men in the camp. This would lighten the mass on Moses’ shoulders and free him to other important matters. However the question to be asked is, if God was giving Moses so much instruction, why did this piece of advice come from Jethro and not God?

The lesson here is that though it’s important to develop more leaders (and not try to be the all-in-one/Moses-of-all-trades); but also it’s important that leaders in church respect other people around them enough to accept constructive-criticism. An effective leader of a church must recognize that God places other people around them to be of input to them, and that it’s not just Gods direct voice that they should have to listen to or take direction from. It’s a lesson that man is not greater than man, that no matter your place on the ladder or how strong your faith, there is never a leader that should think his choices are above the refute of man. This is why today it’s understood the importance of church council, and organisations such as AOG, these serve as a protective mechanism for the church. Where these effects are not in place or respected is where leaders become dictators.

The Legacy Church

Deuteronomy 34:4

God made it clear to Moses that although the Promised Land was in sight, Moses would not be crossing into it. Fortunately Moses had passed onto Joshua the spirit of wisdom and Joshua continued the commandments of God.

It’s important that the church learns to lead a life that focuses on the Legacy they are creating, and not just what can be achieved in a moment or within their lifetime. Many people throughout history aside Moses have achieved their ‘Promised Land’ without actually being there to witness it. For example, Anne Frank wrote her diary whilst dreaming of someday becoming a writer. God gave to the Israelites what was promised to them in the days of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Abraham may not had seen the fruition of Gods words but he had to trust that his life would leave a Legacy intertwined within his lineage that would one day see the promises fulfilled. Likewise in today’s context, the goal-driven microwave-culture of expecting everything to be done in an instance is not the culture of God. We have to accept that Gods timing is a class of perfection that we can only begin to comprehend upon reflection and also that just because God gives you the ‘goal’ that doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be the one checking it off as complete. The lesson here is that as people our role is to rise up a community of leaders that carry a common ‘gene’ that will lead us into promises our faith can see but our eyes may not.

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