Video Transcript: Moses vs Joshua

Being an effective manager. Qualification number two, Moses. We're going to do a little case study on Moses. I listened to someone do this long ago. I can't  remember who it was, but it was a fascinating thing. Instead of just reading the  text and, you know, some kind of a sermon that comes out of the text. We're  actually looking at Moses, the person, and we're trying to figure out, sort of the  personality, or, you know, what was Moses really, kind of the psychology of  Moses and and the whole goal here is to is to become self aware. Say you're a  manager, you're a leader, and you do things, but you do things as an imperfect  human being, and you do things out of the struggles and hurts of your own life.  And it's good to for a person in leadership to be self aware, to know you know  your strengths and your weaknesses, your tendencies. And so we're going to  look at Moses with the idea of of seeing who Moses is and what he was  struggling with, and then sort of apply it to ourselves as as managers. And the  story of Moses, of course, is in the book of Exodus, but the story of Moses gets  told in kind of a summary way in the book of Acts. In Acts 6, the church is  growing fast, and the apostles can't keep up with the work, so they find some  other leaders. In chapter six, you'll discover there's a list of leaders, and one of  those leaders, his name is Stephen. Stephen is chosen to help out with the  widows, help out with the waiting on tables. Are the words there some kind of  physical needs. But in the next chapter, Stephen is preaching, and he gets in  trouble with the religious leaders, and they are quizzing him, and he's trying to  defend himself. And so he starts telling the whole history of Israel, and then he's  going to show how Jesus and His death and resurrection fit into that. And then  they stone him. Well, in the middle of that, he sort of gives a summary view of  Moses. It's very, very interesting. So we're going to look at Acts 7. We're going to start with verse 20 and and we're going to look at Moses and where he may  have got a hurt. Now we have to sort of extrapolate this. We don't know if it's all  true or not, but, you know, just walk with me as we as we, treat Moses as kind of a case study. So Acts 7:20, about that time Moses was born, his parents hid him at home for three months. Why did they hide him? Pharaoh was threatened. The people of God were in Egypt. They became slaves. The Pharaoh was  threatened by their success and their numbers, and so he ordered that the male  children be thrown into the river, that they that they be killed. And Moses parents didn't want to do that, so his parents hid him at home for three months, and  when, alas, they could no longer keep him hidden. They had to abandon him.  Okay? Now they didn't, they didn't just, you know, abandon them. But they, you  know, they made this little ark, and they put the little boat, put Moses in it, and  they sent it down the river because they knew the Pharaoh's daughter would be  there, and she picked him up and raised him as her own. But I like these words,  abandon him. Those are the words, and one wonders how Moses felt about it.  Now the family is just trying to save him, but from the kids point of view, he had  a family, and now he doesn't, and now he's in some other family. And I think 

that's true of many adopted children, that at some point they wonder about their  real mother, the real father, and wonder, Well, what happened? Why didn't they  keep me? You know what? Maybe they appreciate their new home, and they  have no complaints about it. But still, there's that nagging question, what  happened? What was it something about me? Or it's hard not to feel abandoned so and so Moses, in some ways, is abandoned by his family, and now he's being raised in another culture that is not his own. He's, he's, in a way, the outsider in  this new culture. Maybe he looks a little different from them. You know, everyone knows that he's the outsider. Okay, so Acts 7:23 the hurt demands attention. So  he's maybe, maybe he has this hurt, but he's raised in this Egyptian home, and  he's, you know, succeeding and learning and growing and doing things, but the  hurt is somewhere in there. Acts 7:23, when Moses was 40 years. Old, he  decided to visit his own people, the Israelites. He saw one of them being  mistreated by an Egyptian so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing  the Egyptian. Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was  using him to rescue them, but they did not okay. So Moses is being raised in the  Pharaoh family, and things are going along, and then all of a sudden, at age 40,  I mean, why didn't he do it earlier? But at age 40, he goes, Hey, I'm going to  reconnect with my people. And that's often the way it is. With a hurt, you receive  a hurt, maybe early, early on, maybe parents that didn't love you, or someone  didn't recognize you, or you went to school, and you started off a little slow, and  so people labeled you, and you had this label, and you fought to overcome it.  And, you know, we get these hurts, we get these little nicks, you know, bruises  in our lives, and we want to overcome them. So it's like, I don't know if you've  ever gone to the beach and you have a big beach ball, you know, or a ball that is filled with air, and you try to keep that beach ball under the water. You try to  press the ball under the water. And it takes everything you've got, I mean, your  arms and your shoulders, and you're trying to hold this ball under the water. And  you can succeed a little bit. I mean, it takes a lot of effort, but eventually your  arms get tired, or it gets awkward, and all of a sudden the ball goes shooting up. And that's what happens with people. They try to hold on to their hurt. They try  to cover it up, push it down, try to act like it's not there, but then you know  beyond their control at some moment that they could never predict. All of a  sudden, the ball just pops up. Had a young man who came to my office once,  and he felt like he wasn't being recognized. He felt like he had leadership  potential, but no one was letting him lead. And you know, people told me I'm a  natural leader and so and so. You know, he went on and on about this, and you  know, finally, I said, Well, maybe some of these things are true, but I have not  seen it. I mean, I didn't see any of this leadership thing he was talking I thought,  I'm just gonna tell you the truth. Some people don't tell dare tell you the truth,  but I'm gonna tell you the truth. And he got all that, so he ran out of the office.  Didn't see him again. Six months later, he comes back. He says, You know 

when I left your office. I was so angry at you, and I left and I, you know, but then  I started having these memories come back, memories of being abused. And so  I've been in counseling and been with some groups trying to help me do that.  And I just want to come back and, number one, apologize, but also thank you,  because, you know, that was the trigger that that got me to do this. See the ball  you're trying to hold it under. You don't know what even is even there. You don't  even know that the hurt and the pain is there, and all of a sudden it, it pops up  into your life because something happened, or, you know, 40 years later, I don't  know, all of a sudden, something is going on, and it pops up into your life and  you have to deal with it so that's what happens to Moses. We don't know exactly what happened, but after 40 years, he wants to reconnect. So it pops up. He  wants to do something about this hurt, this pain. Why did I get abandoned? And  so he comes back to his people, and he tries to reconnect. And what happens?  It doesn't work, and that's often the case. People will have a memory, abuse  something. They go back to their parents. They want to, you know, settle this  thing, find out what happened, and they're ready to do it, but their parents aren't. Everyone's in denial. No one wants to deal with this. Everyone thinks you're  crazy. Everyone thinks you're making stuff up. And you're like, disillusioned. It's  like, finally you want to talk about this, and no one wants to talk about it. It just  makes it messier. You want to deal with it, and no one else does. And so what  does Moses do? He runs, you know? Okay, I'm out of here. And so he flees. And he becomes an alien, grows up, lives in a totally separate place, becomes a  shepherd, you know what? I'm just going to reject. I'm going to reject the  Pharaoh and that life. I'm going to reject my upbringing, everything. I'm just  going to go do my own thing. And that's what people often do, and and, and they get some healing, perhaps, and they're able to put that ball under the water  again. The Hurt gets leveraged. What is leverage? Leverage is when you can,  you got this, this negative thing, but it can be used for something positive. So  Acts 7:30 after 40 years. Interesting. It's another 40 years, right? The first thing  was, 40 years. Now it's another 40 years. Had passed. An angel appeared to  Moses in the flames of the burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. When  he saw this, he was amazed at the sight, and he went over to look more closely.  And he heard the Lord's voice, I am the God of your fathers, the God of  Abraham Isaac and Jacob Moses, trembled with fear and did not dare to look.  Then the Lord said to him, take off your sandals, for the place you are standing  is holy ground. I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have  heard their groaning, and I have come down to set them free. Now come, I will  send you back to Egypt. This is the same Moses, whom they had rejected with  the words who made you ruler and judge. He was sent to their ruler and  deliverer. He was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God Himself, through  the angel who appeared to him in the bush. Okay, so Moses has this hurt. He  was rejected in some ways, at least, that's how he felt by his family. He was 

raised in a foreign place that maybe never really accepted. Then he tries to  reconnect. It didn't really work. He now flees across the desert. He actually  becomes the perfect person for God to choose to go back. God is going to  

leverage all the hurt and pain of his life to his glory and so, you know, and that's  what God sometimes does. You have hurts and pains, but sometimes those  hurt, hurts and pains actually paved the way for you to do great things. Okay, so  Moses goes back, he, you know, gets the people together, kind of the 10  plagues, and the people complain. And then, you know, and God keeps giving  the plagues. Finally, they leave Egypt. They get to the river. And now Pharaoh  and his chariots are coming, and again, the people complain. Moses parts the  sea. They go across the sea. They go to Mount Sinai. Moses goes up to the  mountain. He gets the law of God, and when he comes down from the  mountain, Moses face is shining. You know, Moses saw God face to face. He's  the only one that's done that, and his face is radiant because of that, and people notice it. Wow, Moses, your face is shining. You got to do something. It's like a,  you know, 10,000 watt light bulb. And so Moses, first of all, you know, Moses,  face shining was like a badge for Moses. You know, Moses, all of his life, wanted to be significant. I just want to fit in. I just want people to like me in some ways.  And now he comes down from the mountain, and his face is shining, and it's a  symbol of him being somebody, but it's also pushes him away from the people.  So Moses puts a veil. Moses puts a veil so it's not so blinding. People can't see  the light of his face, but the veil now becomes symbolic of his importance. I  mean, how many men are running around the Israelite camp with the veil on?  He's the only one. So when people see this guy running around with a veil. They go, well, who's that? Oh, that's Moses. Well, why is he got a veil on? Well, he's  going to veil on because he saw God face to face, and his face is radiant. Wow.  He must be really important. Yes, he really is important. Okay, so the veil  because becomes this symbol of a person's importance and self worth. Okay.  Now what's very interesting. So when Aaron Exodus 34 when Aaron and all the  Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near  him. When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face, okay,  what happens to this veil II Corinthians 3:7 Paul's writing to the church in  Corinth. But he's writing about a subject, and all of a sudden he throws this  business of Moses veil in there. The old way, the laws etched in stone led to  death, though it began with such glory that the people of Israel could not bear to  look at Moses' face, for his face shown with the glory of God. Now this phrase  even though the brightness was already fading away, so when Moses came  down from the mountain, it was like a 10,000 watt light bulb. He puts the veil  over it, and he runs around. And when people see the veil, it's like, whoa, wow.  The guy with the veil, you know, must be Moses, must be this important person  who saw God, okay, but soon it's only shining at a 5000 watt. Soon it's only 1000 watts. Soon it's soon it's just like a flickering candle. But does Moses take the 

veil off? No, he doesn't. He keeps the veil, even though the veil is not needed.  Why? Because the veil is symbolic of who he is. People see the veil and they  say, wow, oh, that's Moses. That's the one who saw God. A manager must be  self aware of the veil that he or she has leveraged. What we're talking about is  

the hurts and pains and what we've done to overcome those hurts and pains in  our lives that is that helped us succeed. So a manager has to be aware that  some of the reasons why he succeeds at what he does is is not just because of  talents and gifts. It's because of really working hard to hide something. Well,  what kind of veils? The veil of power. Some people want power. They need  power because they felt powerless growing up. They were in a horrible family  situation, and they didn't feel like they had any power. And so now that they're  adults, they go into situations where they can grab power, and there's never  quite enough. So they're successful people, but it's to cover up a hurt number  two, the veil of success, I'm going to beat you, and when I beat you, I'm finally  going to be somebody. I'm only somebody when I succeed. And I got hurt when I was little, maybe I was a slow starter. I was the last in the class. Maybe I wasn't  good at sports. There's some reason, some hurt that I received, where I want  success to be the anecdote, the thing that will help me be better, there's a story.  It's a funny story of a guy who goes into a big office, you know, a corporate  building, and he's there to fix something on but he's like a data processor  person, he's got a suit on, and he's fixing something. And then he notices the  president's office, and it's empty. So he walks into the president's office, and it's  got the mahogany and the desk, and it's got the leather chair. And so he looks  around, and he sits behind the desk. He just pretends, you know, this is nice,  sits in the leather chair, and, you know, plays with the pens on the desk. It's like,  you know, this is what it's like to have arrived. Okay, so he's sitting there, sort of  enjoying himself, and all of a sudden, a worker, it's Saturday, a worker comes  walking in, you know, he's got the white suit on, and worker comes, comes  walking in, and he, you know, he doesn't know what to do. He feels  embarrassed, so he quickly, without thinking, just grabs the phone, picks it up,  says, Yeah, I told you, yeah, we got to sell that. I don't care what we get. Look.  I'm counting on you to do not just get it done. Then he hangs up the phone.  Then he looks at the guy, the worker guy, that just walked in. He says, What do  you want? And the worker guy is sort of embarrassed, and he, you know, looks  down a little bit, and finally looks up and says, Well, I'm just here to hook up the  phone. Success. Sometimes it's a cover up for how we feel our hurts and our  pains. Number three, the veil of stoic philosophy was around during Jesus' day.  It was a popular thing in the Roman world, and it was this idea that what's going  to happen is going to happen. Just accept whatever it is, good or bad, it's just  going to happen. And some people have put that veil on. They emotionally got  burned somewhere. They emotionally got involved with a relationship, and they  ended up getting burned by that relationship, and they're not going to get burned

again, so they're just not going to invest emotionally again. Now, because  they're not invested emotionally, they become really successful at what they do.  Lot of managers are like that. They never get mad, they never get happy.  They're just even keeled. And sometimes they succeed at that. But the reason  they're succeeding at that is because they turned off the emotions. And they  turned off the emotions to protect some hurt and some pain, the veil of isolation.  Instead of dealing with people getting burned by people, I'm just not going to be  with people. But because I'm isolated, I get a lot done. And so we give a lot of  stuff to a person like that, and they stay isolated, but it's because of a hurt or the veil of humor. Some people learned long ago, you can keep people at a distance with a little humor. When someone's getting too close, you just throw out a joke.  The way you handle everything in life is just throw out a joke you never can talk  to the person you ever can deal with anything, because everything is reduced to something that's humorous the veil of criticism. A lot of people discovered long  ago that a good offense is better than a mediocre defense. My cousin, he's two  months younger than I am. When he was five years old. His family went to a  truck stop, and they got out of the car. And there was another five year old that  he didn't know at all. He walked up to that five year old and punched him in the  mouth. My aunt and uncle, I grabbed him. What are you doing? Why did you  punch him in the house mouth? And he said, Well, I had to hit him before he hit  me. That's what criticism. Is like, if I can be critical of all those around me, I can  keep them at a distance. They don't have time to criticize me. They don't have  time to find my fault. They don't have time to find my hurt. See, I'm hiding my  hurt behind a wall of criticism. I'm always on the offense. People are looking out  for me. Number seven, the veil of conformity. Some learn if you just agree with  everybody, you know, you just say yes to everyone. Doesn't mean you are going to do it. You just say yes to everybody. The veil of flirtation, or, I would say, the  veil of charm. A lot of charming folk never learn anything, any mistake that they  make. They just charm their way out of it. They know how to just make it okay,  make it fine, and they never really learn anything or flirtation. Flirtation is trying  to trying to win something. A lot of salespeople are really flirtatious. They they  want to throw something out there, and they want you to grab hold of it. They  want to sell something. And a lot of really good salesmen. They're good  salesmen, but why? Now maybe they're just good with people, and this is what  they like to do. But maybe the good salesman is a good salesman because he  needs, he needs the validation of someone buying from them, and I need it  every day. I need someone to say yes to whatever it is that I'm doing or I don't  feel good about myself. Maybe, maybe it's a lack of attention I grew up and my  parents didn't have time for me, and it just feels good when someone when I can get somebody to do something see I can control that I can make that happen. I  felt powerless as a young person, that I couldn't make anything happen, that  people didn't notice me. And now I get a good feeling when I can get someone 

to buy from me. Number nine, the veil of attention. You know, I do whatever I  can get. You know, I do good things to get attention, but I'm willing to do bad  things to get attention. I'm willing to create disasters so that people pay  attention. I would just, I just want attention one way or another. Why? Because I  grew up and I didn't have attention. Maybe I'm one of 12 kids and no one  noticed me, or I was in a class and I was just in the middle of the pack. I was  never I wasn't good at sports, I wasn't great at the grades. I just blended in. And  I don't want to blend in. I want to be somebody or number 10 the veil of order.  My wife is from a family that that, you know, if you did something creative, they  didn't say anything. If you did something adventurous, they were almost afraid,  you know, like you shouldn't try that. But what they did honor, was order. Things  are in order. The shoes are here. Everything is in its place. Everything is neat  and tidy. So I married a girl like that. She was raised in a home where order was  was, was, was honored and adventure was not. I was raised in a family where  adventure was honored and order was not. So you can imagine what our life  was like, you know, I'm into I'm into adventure, you know? I think that's what's  cool. And my wife is into order. Well, some people can be hiding behind the  order. They don't care whether something gets done, it's whether things are in  order, and they keep it in order. And a lot of managers are really good at this. My wife's sister is a librarian. You got to keep the books in order, and she's excellent at it. She runs a incredible library, but what hurt is she, is she still I get the  impression, at least from her, that she's still looking for her father to say, You  know what, I just love you. I love you for you, not because you put things in  order. The veil of control. Maybe a person grew up in a family where there was  no control. It was an out of control place, and to control something. You know,  anorexic people are anorexic because they can control something. They can  control what they eat or don't eat, and it feels like at least something, the veil of  what the point of this whole message is you got to figure out what veil you may  be hiding behind. You may be talented and gifted and a great leader and a great manager, but if some of your leadership and some of the greatness that you've  become is because of the work you do to cover something up, it's like that ball  you're trying to hold under the water. Yeah, you're succeeding right now, but at  any point, this thing could just pop up right in the middle of your life, and it often  does, and that's exactly what happened to Moses in Numbers 20 in the first  month, the whole Israelite community arrived at the desert. Of Zen and they  stayed at Kadesh. There. Miriam died and was buried. There was no water for  the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron.  They quarreled with Moses and said, If only we had died when our brothers fell  dead before the Lord. Why did you bring the Lord's community into the  wilderness that we and our livestock, should die here. Why did you bring us out  of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs or grapevines or  pomegranates, there's no water to drink. And Moses and Aaron went from the 

assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting, and they fell face down, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. And the Lord said to Moses, take the staff.  You and your brother, Aaron, gather the assembly together, speak to the rock  before their eyes, and it will pour out water. You will bring water out of the rock  for the community so that they and their livestock can drink. So Moses took the  staff from the Lord's presence, just as He commanded him, and he and Aaron  gathered the assembly together in front of the rock, And Moses said to the  people, listen, you, rebels, must we bring water out of this rock? And then  Moses raised his arm, and he struck the rock twice with his staff. Okay, what's  going on? Moses is standing before the people, and it's like he's saying, Okay, I  was born into a family, and they abandoned me. They abandoned me into some  foreign place, and I was raised in a foreign place where I didn't really fit in. After  40 years, I go back to my own people, people to reconnect with them, and what  happens? They reject me. And so I run. I say, Okay, fine. I don't fit in the  Pharaoh thing. I don't fit in with the Israelite thing. Fine. I'm just going to go with  the Midian thing. I'm just going to start my own little culture and become a  shepherd and have my own kids and be done with it. So he does that, and then  40 years later, God says, No, I have prepared you to go back to these people.  So Moses does it. He obeys. He goes. He goes through all the hassle with the  Pharaoh, all the 10 plagues, back and forth, back and forth, takes the people  out, finally gets them out. The Red Sea thing, the Pharaoh is coming down with  the chariots. People complain again. Why did you take us? Why are we  following you, Moses, why don't you leave us in Egypt? Moses, separates the  water. He comes. They wander in the desert. For you know, these 40 years  running around in the desert, complaining he they complain about water. He  gets water. They complain about not having meat. He gets the meat. He does  every he's like bending over backwards to help these people. And what do I get  after all this, after giving up my whole life for all you people, what do I get?  Complain again? I mean, we did the water thing already, and you saw how God  provides, but here we are again. You're out of water, and so now you're  complaining again. You want to go back to Egypt. I'm so tired of this. Finally,  Moses cannot wear the veil anymore. Finally, Moses can't keep the ball under  water, and the ball just comes up, and Moses takes his staff, and he hits the  rock. I'm not speaking to the rock. Moses literally hits the rocks. And that's  what's going to happen to you, too. You don't deal with the hurt in your life. You  may be able to cover it up. You may be able to become a great success. Lot of  successful people are out there, they succeed, but their families get killed. In the end, their marriages get destroyed. In the end, people's faith gets destroyed. In  the end, you can succeed on the outside. You can put the veil on and do  amazing and great things, and a lot of it because of their veil, but in the end, that hurt, that pain, is going to get you in the end, eventually, the ball bounces up, it  comes up and it destroys your life. So what am I saying? I'm saying as a leader, 

you have to be aware of the hurts and pains in your life if you want people  around you to deal with their hurts and pains, and that's what the Christianity  thing is all about. It's about dealing with your hurt, your pain, your sin, so that  Jesus can heal you. If you don't deal with it, it will destroy something. So as a  manager, when are you close to hitting the rocks or what? What issues do you  need to deal with? Doesn't mean you're going to fix everything, but at least you  should be aware .