cover.qxd 11/9/11 3:35 PM Page 1 Integrity A JOURNAL OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT Published by the Commission for Theological Integrity of the National Association of Free Will Baptists Summer 2006 • Number 3 01williams.qxd 11/9/11 3:31 PM Page 11 Jack Williams The Leader God Uses: A Sermon INTRODUCTION Lead from the front! That’s the leader’s creed, but not so far out front that people lose sight of him. He must be vocal, but not so vocal the people hear his voice instead of God’s voice. He must set the pace—fast enough to challenge the strong, slow enough not to discourage the weak. One of the leader’s responsibilities is to work himself out of a job by training someone to take his place. While he can never please everybody and is foolish to try, he dare not indiscriminately offend people in the name of duty. The ideal leader probably does not exist, since “ideal” varies from one person to the next. Let’s consider, therefore, one leader in one church. Where the Leader Serves He serves a rural church with a highly mobile and growing mem- bership. Unemployment among members is ninety percent and has been for a generation. They’ve had one building program in forty years. They have no hymnals, no public address system, no Sunday school curricu- lum, no air conditioning, no pews, no Wednesday night prayer meeting, no Thursday night visitation, and they conduct services once a week. The congregation has produced members whose names, if mentioned now, you would recognize immediately. The people raise no crops, yet no one goes hungry. They have no fac- tories, yet every member wears warm clothes and shoes that fit. No one has hospitalization insurance. They have no income, yet, during their only building program, members gave so much the leader asked them to stop. On the other hand, this is a church with so little they could not sur- vive unless God did the miraculous every day. The three-million-member Church in the Wilderness is led by Moses. Exodus 14 says they crossed the Red Sea in one night. If they had gone over in columns of two, the line would have been 800 miles long, and it would have taken 35 days and nights. But they crossed on dry ground, which means God dried a space in the seabed three miles wide and they walked across 5,000 abreast. Integrity 3 (2006): 11-21 01williams.qxd 11/9/11 3:31 PM Page 12 12 INTEGRITY: A JOURNAL OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT What the Church Requires The Israeli camp in the wilderness was two-thirds the size of Rhode Island (750 square miles). God sent manna each day to feed the people. That would be 1,500 tons of food every day. If they ate as much as we do, it would have taken two freight trains one mile long each day to haul the food and would cost 6 million dollars per day. What about water? The Bible says, “Behold, he smote the rock, that the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed” (Psalm 78:20). It took 11 million gallons daily, and God provided in this fashion for 14,600 days (that’s 40 years). When you’ve been on the receiving end of God’s goodness that long at that magnitude, you believe God can do anything, because you see the impossible every morning before breakfast. Now consider the man who leads this group of people. If you know much about Moses, you already have an idea how this will be approached. Moses’ life conveniently falls into three forty-year periods. THE FIRST FORTY YEARS—MOSES, THE MIGHTY MAN (ACTS 7:20-25) Qualities of Leadership Moses stepped from his bulrush ark hungry to be somebody impor- tant. If ever a young man had leadership potential, Moses did. His life could not have been better if he had written the script for it himself. He had every quality associated with leadership. Moses Was Handsome (v. 20). That’s what the Bible means when it says he was “exceeding fair.” If you don’t think a pretty face helps in leader- ship, take a look at who gets lead roles in television programs and who plays the heavy. When Moses walked by, mothers nudged their daugh- ters and told them to bring one home that looked like him. The point is, it does a leader no harm to sport a photogenic million-dollar smile and a granite jaw. The man looked like a leader. Moses Was Educated (v. 22). That’s what the Bible means when it says he was “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” He was the most highly educated Hebrew of his generation, perhaps the only Hebrew to be cross-culturally trained. You can be sure that Pharaoh’s daughter spared no expense in Moses’ training. He was tutored by the finest teachers in math, medicine, religion, and dreams—all intriguing to the Egyptian mind. He knew the social graces. He was at ease with kings and governors, with military 01williams.qxd 11/9/11 3:31 PM Page 13 WILLIAMS: THE LEADER GOD USES: A SERMON 13 men and business tycoons, with learned professors and the great schol- ars of his day. While it is true that a man can lead without the formal training Moses received, it is just as true that men clamor for leaders who can walk among the wise and mighty without losing their sense of balance. Moses Was Eloquent (v. 22). That is, he was “mighty in words.” Moses knew how to communicate verbally. When Moses talked, people lis- tened. He not only had something to say, he had the wherewithal to say it well. Of course, this is a radical departure from Moses’ lame excuse to God that he was “slow of speech” (Exodus 4:10). But then Moses was not the only man who told God he couldn’t talk before a crowd. Moses Was a Doer (v. 22). The Bible says he was “mighty … in deeds.” Some men are talkers, others are doers. Moses was that rare blend of both. Being a doer made him a favorite with men. Moses not only talked big, he walked big. Men respect those who get things done. Simply put, Moses was being groomed as the next Pharaoh. His name could have been carved on Egyptian monuments alongside Ramses, Necho, Thutmosis, and Amen-hotep. The King-Makers In every society there is that group of people who help make leaders. Most mighty men don’t get that way without a lot of help. Moses was no exception. Moses Had a Brave Sister (Exodus 2:4-8). Her name was Miriam, that feisty little girl who stood along the riverbank and watched as the bul- rush ark floated down the Nile. From the way the story reads, she must have been fearless. When Pharaoh’s daughter pulled the crying baby from the ark, Miriam burst from the undergrowth, ran right up to the princess (only a big sister would have the nerve to do that), and asked if she wanted a baby-sitter. Turns out the princess needed a nanny. Care to guess who Miriam brought back to do the job? Amazing, isn’t it, how God’s plans seem immune to men’s opposi- tion? Not only is the child spared, but the government that was killing Hebrew boys bought his clothes, paid for his education, and gave him every possible luxury. Moses Had a Godly Mother (Exodus 2:8-10; 6:20). Her name was Jochebed. She sacrificed her future for his. We’ll probably never know 01williams.qxd 11/9/11 3:31 PM Page 14 14 INTEGRITY: A JOURNAL OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT how often Jochebed prayed while Moses lay between two worlds—born in one, raised in the other. For three months she defied the law and hid her son from Egyptian baby-killers. But there came a day when his cries could no longer be covered. Perhaps only a mother can know the agony Jochebed felt as she realized that to keep the boy any longer would mean losing him to the sword. So one unforgettable day, Jochebed placed her baby in an ark where he floated on the bosom of the Nile buoyed by her prayers—and waited. Many mothers will lose their sons unless they turn them loose on the river of God’s mercy. They have done all they can for their children, and now if they are to be salvaged, God must work a miracle. And he did. I would love to have been there when Miriam came scrambling through the door with news that Pharaoh’s daughter was looking for a baby-sitter and to have seen the love on Jochebed’s face when an Egyptian princess handed her son back to her. She had to lose him to find him. She had to give him up in order to keep him. Did Jochebed take advantage of the precious years God gave her? She did such a splendid job teaching the boy that forty years later Moses chose God rather than to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter (Hebrews 11:24-27). Such is the influence of a godly mother to mold mighty men. Moses Had a Quiet Father (Exodus 2:1; 6:20). Moses had a quiet father who buried himself in anonymity for his son’s sake. The man was so anonymous that most people don’t know his name.