Transcription of the Video: He Led Them Like A Shepherd

There was no doubt who was in charge in Egypt. Pharaoh was a man who wielded enormous power and was unafraid to use it. That's shown in lots of ways around these temples and palaces in Egypt. Often, Pharaoh, with a stick, a sword, a weapon, using it sometimes brutally as he exercised his power in order to defeat chaos and to bring the order the Egyptians wanted. 

God chose a man with a stick too. But a very different kind of stick than the one Pharaoh knew - a shepherd's stick. The shepherds of the desert used their stick to defend the sheep, not to beat the sheep. Leadership of a shepherd is a very different kind than leadership of a Pharaoh. 

So, God wanted his people to learn lots of things in the desert, but one of them was what does it mean to be a leader? Come with us into the desert and see what God taught his people there about leadership as God would have it. 

We've been hiking on the slope of Jebu Musa, which is the traditional Mount Sinai. Katherina, a much higher peak is just beyond these peaks here. We're here because we want to talk about Moses. Somewhere in the area of Mount Sinai, whether it's this one or one of the other candidates, we meet Moses for the first time as God's choice of leader. 

We've met him before, you remember. He's born in Egypt, rescued in an ark (a little like Noah, as if God is starting a new creation), given the name Moshe, which means to draw out. We know what his destiny was to be. He didn't. 

In Egyptian, his name means son. So apparently, the Egyptian princess named him son, because she thought, "I took him out of the water. He's my son," not realizing that she had given him a destiny.

We discover early on that Moses is a very sensitive man, sort of after God's heart you might say. So then, Moses lived somewhere in the desert and he cared for the sheep of his father-in-law, whose name was Jethro. 

The text starts the next chapter in Moses' life by saying, "Moses came to Horeb, the mountain of God." He's got his father-in-law's flock, and as he watched that flock in the rocks, he saw a bush burning. I don't know if it was this kind of a bush or not. This one is called rottem - broom tree in our Bible. Elijah once lied down under one. 

What struck Moses, though, is that the bush burned but didn't burn up. It was a consuming fire that didn't consume, you might say. And so, he left his few sheep and goats and went to look closer. And then, the text tells us an angel of God was in that fire. And out of that fire, God spoke. And he started in a formula he often uses. "Moshe! Moshe!" When your name gets called twice, expect God to ask you to do something really significant in this kingdom he's working on here in this world.

But it's almost as if there's a conversation going on. Now, one of my friends framed it this way, and I like that. God said, "Moses, I've seen the suffering and I've heard the ze'akah - the cry of agony - from my people in Egypt." 

And you can imagine Moses thinking, "It's about time somebody heard that."

And then, God said, "And I'm going to deliver them."

And you can imagine Moses thinking, "Yes! That's awesome."

And then, God said, "And you go to Pharaoh and tell him." 

And suddenly, this Moses, this shepherd had a problem. It began to dawn on him, "This is going to be a mission that's laid on me." Now begins the discussion between God and Moses. "Me? Who am I?"

And in a key leadership detail, God doesn't do what you'd expect. What you would expect, since Moses doesn't feel qualified, is for God to recite his qualifications. "Moses, you're fluent in Egyptian. You lived there 40 years. You know Pharaoh personally. You know Egyptian gods. And Moses, you've had 40 years in the desert where I'm going to put the people. You know every broom tree on every mountain. You're like a Bedouin, and you're tough as nails."

God doesn't do that. He makes a simple statement. "I will go with you." Great leaders like Moses have qualifications. But what makes great leaders in God's mind is not simply the qualifications he's provided but that they never forget that leadership is about being a godly person who leads as God leads. 

And so, in front of a bush somewhere on a mountain a lot like this one, Moses is commissioned to be a leader on behalf of God. He's entrusted with a stick. In fact, one of the first questions God says is, "What's that in your hand?"

Imagine Moses going, "This? It's my stick." This one even looks a little bit like a snake. And God said, "Throw it down." It turned into a snake. "Pick it up." It turned back into a stick. 

Now, I don't think there was any mistake at that moment that Moses didn't think, "Wow. That's a pretty amazing stick." Because he had carried that stick around for years. It was pretty clear that the power of God was going to be represented in that stick. 

But God's commission is not simply to go to Pharaoh and to bring Israel out. God's commission is to be me - or rather like me - to Pharaoh and lead Israel as I lead Israel (like a shepherd). "Why do you think, Moses, I had you here for 40 years shepherding sheep? The only thing that's going to happen to you is to change flocks. And if you think that flock you had on this mountainside was a tough bunch, wait until you see my flock. But lead them like a flock."

But like us, particularly those of you who are leaders, he's not the perfect leader. The text tells us, "I will raise up a prophet like Moses." In Deuteronomy, Moses wrote it himself, I think. There would be another Moses who would take the servant leadership of Moses one more level. Let's walk with him, condensing 40 years into a few miles, and let's see why another Moses will come. Come.

We've come, today, to a place called Timnah (or Timna). I think it's likely the Israelites passed fairly close here after they left Sinai, wherever that was and were on their way to the Promised Land. And the story of the spies being sent out will come next. Somewhere they passed close by. At the time they passed here, there was a significant presence in this place, because in these mountains around are deposits of copper. Since ancient times, empires wanted this place, because copper was important. Even more so, because out of copper ore, they made bronze, which was the metal of their day.

Now, I came here to start that story because of what was here. If you look over there, inside that wall, there's a smelting operation of that copper ore that's found in these hills. Imagine, we've got our desert heat today. But imagine 120 plus degrees and running a smelting furnace. But this hill is called Slaves' Hill. You can see the slag of some smelting operations here too. It appears to those who did the archaeological work here that this is where the Egyptians kept their slaves. So, the Egyptians had controlled this area since before the time of Abraham. They would continue to control it throughout Israelite history even into the time of King Solomon who had a seaport down here not far away. There was still an Egyptian presence here. I'm telling you; Egypt is hard to get out of you. It's hard. 

Now, that brings us to the reason we're here today. We want to talk, today, about Moses as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, leader the Hebrew people ever had. Moses, remember, was born in Egypt. God's people found themselves in slavery. If you remember, God had brought his creation out of chaos, brought order out of that watery chaos, beautiful and wonderful. And then, sin entered and began to bring his order - his shalom - back into chaos. 

First, the chaos was an individual thing. Cane killed Abel. Then, as it always does, that chaos became a kingdom. And groups of individuals joined together and whole systems began to display those signs of chaos that God so resists. And one of those kingdoms was Egypt. And that chaos brought suffering to the Hebrews who were there.

Now, in Egypt, that story of theirs-- you remember it, I'm sure-- that their gods had brought order out of chaos. That story resulted in some finding themselves under oppression. And slaves and the sum, of course, included the Hebrews. In fact, this would be a good illustration. We noted in Egypt that Pharaoh always had a stick. He was always found with a stick.

The Pharaoh stick always hits. It's always violent. It's always crushing somebody. Into that situation, God came and shows someone to be his instrument to begin to restore the shalom to the lives of the Hebrews. Moses. Remember? He came from godly parents, I believe - Jochebed and Amram. Both names are God names. They're beautiful names, especially if you remember they were given during slavery. 

That Moses, you remember, from the beginning was a man of interesting character. The first time we meet him as an adult, he sees an Egyptian beat a Hebrew, so he takes his stick or his hand-- I don't know-- and he strikes the Egyptian and kills him.

I don't know if God was happy with him killing the Egyptian, but Moses hits in defense of an innocent victim. Then, we meet him out in the desert, and he's sitting by a well and some shepherd girls come, and some other shepherds harass them, and Moses stands up for the weaker shepherds. And he ends up marrying one of them. 

Moses is a man with a great sensitivity to suffering. When God is angry with the Hebrews, you remember, Moses goes to God and says, "Please, no! Not them. Me. I'll pay for their sin. Blood me out." Of course, it isn't possible. Only one will do this. Moses was a man after God's heart. That phrase is used for David. But it fits Moses as well. 

But Moses also was an Egyptian. And so, God needed to bring Moses somewhere to train him how to be a leader. You don't learn that in Egypt. In Egypt, a leader is going to hit. And some are going to end up being oppressed because of the story the Egyptians believed. And so, God said, "Listen, Moses. I want you to be like me to Pharaoh." We learn that his bigger plan was that through Moses' leading, Israel was to become like God to all the nations of the world - a kingdom of priests. 

First, Moses has to learn how to be like God.  So, come with me. Let's go see how God trained Moses in the desert to prepare him to bring his people out of slavery like this. Come.

Let's talk a bit about Moses' training preparing him to lead God's people, the Hebrews, out of Egypt and why God may have picked desert as the training ground. Why here? 

Well, let me build something for you. What does this desert teach? Well, one of the things we've learned here is total trust on God. You don't survive here even in small numbers without some special help. That's the nature of desert. And Israel's going to have to be out here learning to depend on God totally. What a great place to train Moses. "Trust me, trust me, trust me, trust me. Because you're going to have to lead a whole nation to learn how to trust me."

I think that's really a strong point. But there's something else contrary to anything I would ever have imagined before I came to this land the first time. This is the land of the shepherd. The Bible says - the Book of Numbers - that Israel was going to be with their flocks in the desert for 40 years. (Numbers 14)

David, the shepherd boy is in the desert with his sheep. Believe it or not, this is the kind of land where you find flocks. We've been seeing them all over the Sinai. I don't see any here today, but if I look across at that hill over there, I see trails winding around the nose of that hill - some of them ancient. 

There was a time when flocks grazed here. It may have been as recent as yesterday. It may have been 500 years ago, because those trails sort of never disappear. But this is the land of the shepherd. Now, when you read the text, the story of Exodus and the commentary on it in later books, you discover that God likens himself, during the Exodus, to a shepherd.

He says, "I led my people like a flock." (Psalm 77) Or Psalm 78, "I brought them out of Egypt like a flock. I led them through the desert like sheep." God is a shepherd. "The Lord is my shepherd," right? (Psalm 23)

There's no question the Bible portrays God as a shepherd. And if God was going to bring Israel out of Egypt to know him, what better way to train somebody to show God to the Hebrews than to train somebody as a shepherd, which is what God calls himself.

Now, it's clear that God led his people in this desert. A cloud, remember? But if you look in the original language, it says things like, "the cloud stood". How does a cloud stand? Well, you get a hint. You're supposed to see legs, as if the cloud is walking, moving, as if the cloud is their shepherd. In fact, in the book of Revelation, when the Son of Man comes, his legs are like a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud. God walked ahead of Israel in the form of those clouds. God is shepherd.

So, what's a shepherd out here? Well first, if you've noticed those mostly shepherd women or girls, there's a gentleness and awareness of the needs of each individual sheep in the flock. You watch them. If two sheep wander off, they seek then out. If one goes up a hill, they know it, and they immediately begin to work to get that sheep back. There's a real sensitivity not just to the whole flock, but to individual sheep in the flock. In Isaiah (40), it talks about God taking the lambs in his arms and holding them and protecting them, because they're particularly vulnerable.  

So, in a sense, Moses is being trained in tenderness, sensitivity, awareness of the need of each individual sheep, so that when he leads the flock, it's not just a mob. And I think God is saying, "Moses, when I give you your next flock, wait until you see that one. When I give you that next flock, do the same thing. Don't forget, there are the weak and the slow. And there are those who won't catch it as fast and there are those who are going to want to argue with you. And there are the goats who are going to wander off."

And so, Moses' training is as a shepherd. But there's something else. Did you know that in the Hebrew language, the word for shepherd comes from the word "word"? Probably because a shepherd leads by word. So, the word speak, the word speech, the word mouth, all come from the same root. 

Listen once to Psalm 95. "He is our God, and we are the people of his pasture," which is what this is believe it or not, "the flock under his care. Today, if you hear his voice," then it goes on to tell you how to act. 

In other words, Moses was going to be trained to lead Israel by word. And if you watch those shepherd women we've been seeing, you've noticed how they talk. It's just a constant talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. You call the sheep. You talk so the sheep know where you are. You give them a sense of where you want them to go. It's not so much giving them a command, but just this constant assurance of the shepherd's position.

So, Moses' lessons - many I'm sure - probably many I don't even realize. But Moses' lessons hinge on the idea, "Lead them by your words." No, better. "Lead them by the words I give you to speak to them." 

And think of how often in the Hebrew Bible, it says things like, "Every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Go up Mount Sinai to get the 10 words. Go tell Israel the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord. I'm always speaking. Do you hear me? Can you hear me? Do you hear my words?" Israel had to learn to follow - not out of fear of the stick. The only person that has to fear the stick is the wolf who wants to attack the flock. 

If I'm in Egypt and I'm a sheep, I expect to get hit. Because Pharaoh will hit any sheep. Shepherds don't hit their sheep. "His rod and his staff comfort me." I'm not afraid of them. If I'm a hyena or a wolf, I'm scared to death of that rod, because it may beat me pretty good, because I threaten God's flock. 

But because I'm his flock, this is comforting to me. I think that was critical to shape and mold the people who would be willing to follow God and not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. 

Now, there's something else in that training. In a sense, Moses is preparing us a for a greater shepherd in my opinion. Because there will come another Moses. Remember the passage, "I will raise up a prophet from among your brothers like Moses." (Deuteronomy 18)

That prophet like Moses, I believe, is Messiah. And he will come-- he would come and did come-- and say, "I am the Good Shepherd. My sheep hear my voice. They know my voice. And they follow me," - not because of my stick." Think of the stick that Moses/Messiah carried. He could call 12 legions of angels - or was it 12,000 - legions of angels. He had quite a stick. He doesn't use it. "My sheep know my voice, and they follow my voice." So, in a sense, Moses is beginning to picture, to us, the even greater shepherd to come. 

So, Moses' leadership - a leadership very much like God - is the gentle leadership of a shepherd done by word - not a stick - right up until the very end. And then, we discover Moses needs to continue to learn too.