A snake recently fell into the
window well pit, um, by our home.
And it wasn't a very big snake.
It was only about 18 inches long.
But we had a,
we enjoyed watching the snake
try to climb its way out of the pit.
In order to get out of the pit,
it needed to climb three stairs
and then get over the top of the pit.
And we watched as this snake
lifted up its head on to the first stair,
and lifted the slithery body on
on to the rest,
on to the stair and then did the same thing
with the second step.
And then did the same thing with the third step.
And then it only needed to lift its head
over the edge
to escape but that distance between
step number three
and the ledge was a little bit longer
than the distance between each of those steps.
And it could quite reach it.
And so we watched as the snake
stretched itself as long and as high as it could go.
And going to the left and going to the right.
And then going on its tippy toe-tail -
if that's even what you call it, I don't know.
And then we watched as it
tried to get over the edge
but it never quite made it.
In fact, it ended up falling backwards
and landing flat on its back.
And it had to start all over again.
And it did.
It tried again.
And again.
And again.
But its
best try always ended in the same way.
With a lot of disappointment.
Eventually,
after the snake was too tired
to fight back against us,
we eventually took the snake out of the pit
and released it a couple hundred yards
away from the house.
But as I was watching that snake,
um, I thought:
"I think that snake has something
in common with all of us.
That that snake knows how it feels
to be disappointed."
I thought of anyone who has ever hoped
or dreamed or prayed
for a certain outcome
only to end up with something entirely different.
I thought of anyone who has ever
fallen into a pit of disappointment
and wondered if they were going to escape from it.
I thought of anyone who has
ever felt anything,
something similar to what Moses may have felt
in Numbers, chapter 27,
which is where we'll be spending some time this week.
The context of Numbers, chapter 27 is this:
that after 40 years
of wandering their way through the desert,
after 40 years of going
step by step through the wilderness,
after 40 years of stretching themselves
this way and that,
after 40 years of frequently landing on their backs,
the Israelites finally made it
to the land of promise that
God had given them.
And just as they were peeking their heads
over the edge to see the land of milk and honey
that God had given them,
God reminded Moses that all of the Israelites
were going to be able to go in
but he wouldn't.
He wouldn't be allowed in.
Do you know how he must have felt?
I want to begin this week by
reminding you that that
that Jesus does.
In Isaiah, chapter 53,
it describes Jesus
as a man of sorrows
and familiar with suffering.
He is familiar with our sufferings.
He is familiar with our disappointments.
He became familiar with those things
by choice
so that he could lead us through them.
And I'm looking forward to watching him
do that this week,
for you.
We're taking an in-depth look at
Numbers, chapter 27 this week
at the end of Israel's 40 years of wandering
in the desert when God reminded Moses
that he was not going to be
going into the promised land
with the rest of the Israelites.
Let me just read that section for you quickly.
So God is telling Moses that he's not going in.
And he's reminding him why.
The incident that he's referring to
happened seven chapters earlier
in Numbers, chapter 20.
And in Numbers, chapter 20,
the Israelites were complaining that
they were thirsty in a desert.
Imagine that.
And so Moses and Aaron went to the Lord.
And the Lord said,
"Well, I want you to honor me in front of the Israelites
"by going up to that rock over there
"and telling it to produce water."
But that's not exactly what happened.
Moses went up to the rock
and instead of just talking to the rock,
he hit the rock, twice.
It still produced water.
Everybody got something to drink
but
that wasn't exactly what God told them to do.
So God told him right then and there,
"You're not going to be going into the promised land
with the rest of the Israelites."
And there are a couple of interesting things
that you might,
well, you might be
curious to hear about that incident
in Numbers, chapter 20.
The first one is this...
is that the Israelites had been really nasty
to Moses
right before they started complaining about their thirst.
They were complaining not only about their thirst,
but they had just told Moses
that they would rather be back in Egypt
dying
than in the desert following someone like him.
They didn't care that Moses
had left a very comfortable life
and a very profitable life
to come and risk his neck
to save them from the Egyptians.
They only cared about the fact
that they were thirsty,
that they were uncomfortable and
they blamed Moses for it.
The second thing you might be interested
in knowing is:
Do you know what Moses was doing
just before they started complaining
to Moses
about Moses?
He had just finished burying his sister,
Miriam.
Miriam had just died.
And the dirt from
putting her body in the ground
was still on the hands of Moses when
the people he came to save
basically told him that
they would rather have him in the grave.
And after that,
and after God reminded Moses
that those Israelites were going to be able
to go in but he wasn't,
I find it interesting that Moses
didn't get up and just walk away.
He didn't give up.
He didn't stop leading them.
He continued to lead them.
And scripture
doesn't give any indication that
any Israelites took the time
to say,
"Thanks."
But we can take the time
to say "Thanks" to someone who,
for us, did a very similar thing.
In Isaiah, chapter 53, it says this about Jesus,
He didn't object.
He didn't object. He didn't complain
He didn't complain
even though he was underappreciated,
even though he was in pain,
even though it was our fault that he was in that position
in the first place.
He kept doing his job.
Which wasn't to lead Israel to their promised land,
but to lead us to ours.
And he did.
No matter what else you have going on today.
No matter how unappreciated you feel.
No matter how in pain.
That's enough reason to pause,
stop whatever it is you're doing,
think of Jesus,
and give thanks.
I recently saw a story about a young mom
who was out drinking with her friends
at one of her friends' apartments one night
when she got into her car and she drove home.
And when she got home,
she realized that something was missing.
She didn't have her 2-year-old son with her.
She remembered taking her 2-year-old son
to her friend's apartment.
She remembered strapping her 2-year-old son
into the car seat on her way out the door.
She remembered putting the car seat with the son
in it on top of the car
as she got the car ready to put the car seat in.
But I guess she never really remembered
putting the car seat in the seat.
So she went out to the garage
to see if it was still on top of the car.
And it wasn't.
So she got back into her vehicle
and she started retracing her steps
and when she was just about back to her
friend's apartment, she saw a whole bunch of
police cars on the street.
They had found her son.
He had fallen off the car,
in the car seat,
fully strapped in,
when she started driving away and
he was fine.
Not a scratch on him.
That's a good ending for that story.
(Laughs)
But it doesn't change the fact that mom did
something really, really dumb.
It doesn't change the fact that
mom was more absorbed with herself
than she was with her son.
And being absorbed with yourself
is often a pretty dangerous thing.
In fact, that's the real reason that
Moses wasn't allowed into the promised land.
You might remember that the Israelites
were complaining about being thirsty in the desert.
And God told Moses and Aaron to
"Honor me" by going to that rock
and telling it to produce water.
But that's not exactly what happened.
Moses and Aaron came back to the Israelites
and they said, "Listen, you rebels.
"Must we bring you water from this rock?"
And then they hit the rock twice:
boom, boom. Whush.
And out came the water.
And what was wrong with that?
Listen to their words:
"Must WE
"bring you water from the rock?"
They didn't even mention God.
Their goal wasn't to honor God
in front of the Israelites.
Their goal was to point out how
all the Israelites complaining affected
"we."
Think about the last time you felt disappointed.
The last time life
didn't quite go the way that you wanted.
Did you spend more time thinking about God?
Or yourself?
Were you more eager to point others
to the God who can bring water from a rock and can
probably handle whatever situation
happens to be going on in your life?
Or were you more eager to
make people see just how sad and upset
you are because something
didn't go the way that you wanted?
Moses hitting the rock
wasn't the real reason that
he wasn't allowed into the promised land.
It was because he was more absorbed with himself
than he was with God.
Which is always a mistake.
Not just because of the potential consequences.
But also because of what we miss
when we take our attention
off of God.
And that is: the truth.
That even when Jesus was strapped down
to a cross and ended up with
more than a few scratches,
he was still entirely absorbed
with loving me,
and loving you.
Isaiah 53 is speaking of Jesus when it says this,
We are healed
in all the most important ways.
Because Jesus
was obsessed
with loving me and you.
Yesterday, tomorrow
and today.
A bus recently arrived
in the city of Seville, Spain.
It started its journey in Morocco,
in north Africa, which is 143 miles away.
And when they pulled in to Seville, Spain,
after 143 miles on the road, the bus driver
got out of the bus
and noticed something underneath the bus.
It was a teenager
who had been holding on to the bottom of the bus
the entire way.
Apparently, a lot of folks try to
cross the border from
north Africa into Spain because
life in north Africa is
kind of difficult at the moment.
And this teenager tried to escape
by holding on to the bottom of a bus,
for 143 miles.
It's a lot of effort and a lot of pain
just for the chance of maybe
feeling not so disappointed with life.
But it didn't work.
Because they found the teenager.
They took him into custody.
They cleaned him up and they sent him
right back home again.
And he learned a very important life lesson
that sometimes no matter how hard you try,
life is full of disappointment.
And he's not the only one who knows that now.
And neither do you.
Jesus does, too.
He made a long journey as well.
He made a long journey as well.
He came all the way from heaven,
not because he was trying to escape anything
but because then,
he knows life is full of disappointment.
It's full of death.
It's full of temptation.
It's full of piercing pain.
It's full of all sorts of people
who break great promises
to love you and love God more than anything.
And he wanted to save you from it.
So he held on to something that is
far more dangerous than a moving bus.
He held onto a cross and felt all of its pain
so that you could walk through life knowing
that there is nothing in all creation,
not even your worse me-first,
self-centered moments
that are going to stop you from one day
seeing a promise land that is far greater
than the one Moses was looking at on that mountain.
One in which you will never cry, weep or die
ever again.
God wanted you to be able to stand on
any mountain, on any place at any moment
and know that you don't need to be so concerned
about all the ups and downs of your life
because the Lord is.
And that's why Moses said what he did
as he was standing on that mountain.
After God took Moses to the top of the mountain,
after he reminded him that he wasn't going
to be going in,
you'll see in Moses' words
that he wasn't all that concerned about his own life.
He was more concerned
about the lives of the people
he would no longer be leading.
This is what he said.
It illustrates the truth that
when you know that the Lord is taking care of you,
it really sets you free to
focus a little bit more on
the lives of the people around you.
So do that today.
I bet you won't have any trouble today
finding somebody who feels hurt or disappointed.
So do something
so that they don't have any trouble
finding the Jesus who sets them free
from those things.
A number of years ago,
a little 2-year-old boy named Jacob died of cancer.
On the day of the funeral,
the church bells rang to signal the
start of the service
and a voice came over the loud speaker.
It wasn't the pastor.
It wasn't the funeral home director.
It was the boy's father.
He was sitting back in the pastor's office
and the pastor had given him his microphone.
His voice was shaky but confident
as he said,
"Me and my wife just want to thank everyone
"for being here today and for your loving support.
"It means so much to us.
"And we want you to know how grateful we are
"because we got to do something
"that not every parent does.
"We got to usher Jacob all the way to heaven,
"where God took him from our arms
"and placed them into his."
There's only one type of person
who could ever say something like that.
Somebody who knows what it's like
to hurt and feel disappointed.
Someone who also knows exactly
what kind of God we believe in.
The same God that Moses did.
If you watched yesterday's video,
did you notice what Moses called God?
As he prayed to him, he called him,
"The God of the spirits of all mankind."
In other words, he is the God who is responsible
for giving all mankind life.
In other words, he's the God
who knows your life,
who knows your struggles,
who knows your unique ups and downs.
And he is the God
who's able to lead you through all of it.
Moses saw proof of that
on that mountain.
From the view on that mountain,
he was looking at a land of promise that
God was able to provide after 40 years
of desert wandering, and one that God was
willing to provide for
a nation that did not deserve it.
But God was preparing something different
for Moses.
He was preparing Moses
to die.
That's not the way that God said it.
He said,
In other words, Moses was going to die
and then he was going to see something
that his eyes never would have been able to find
in that promised land.
He was going to see his sister, Miriam, again.
And all of his other loved ones
who had gone to heaven before him.
God was reminding Moses of a beautiful truth
that we get to live with every day:
that not even death
is a disappointment
for the Christian.
In fact, your death
is the day that God finally
gives your redeemed heart
everything that it has ever wanted.
That's why God took Moses up on that mountain.
That's what he wanted him to see.
And that's what he wants you to see, too.
That we always have a place to
go with our disappointments.
We go to the God who knows our lives
and knows how to lead us through them.
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