Every generation has its own buzz words. The boomers were all about leadership—so Gen Xers all wanted to be “leaders.” As pastors we’d travel to the Leadership Summit at Willow every year. But the buzz word for younger people is influence—so younger people all want to be “influencers.” But to be an influencer you have to find your gimmick. You have to answer, “influence people to do and be what?”
I think we can learn a lot from Moses. He went through a series of pivotal paradigm shifts. Our first paradigm shift is moving from FLIGHT to FIGHT! There is a point in life when we must all say, “enough is enough." It's time for justice and righteousness to prevail.
Now if you’re aliens and foreigners, like the Israelites in Egypt, your people have no land, no legal status, no hope and no future. You’ve been forced into bitter labor, making bricks… being abused ruthlessly by masters, who make your work as joyless as possible.
Now if you are a young mother, like Jochebed, and you’re wanting to raise your son in an evil empire, where everyone has been ordered to kill . . . Or you're a midwife, or a daughter born to a monster like Pharaoh… and your conscience demands you defy authority. . .
Or if you’re a young man coming of age, like Moses, and you're filled with rage at the injustice and abuses all around you. . . and one day you happen across an Egyptian abusing one of your fellow Hebrew people...
Your first paradigm shift is FIGHT or FLIGHT. Do you stand strong, and fight for your very freedom, for your very right to life, for your sons and daughters, for righteousness, for your very dignity as a person created in the image of God?
Or, do you turn and run? There are many ways we take flight. You can physically take flight, and run away from problems. You can psychologically take flight. Physically you remain in your circumstance, but you’ve been emotionally, spiritually, and in every way, defeated.
The majority of the Israelites were defeated. They had no other recourse but to cry out, hoping someone would hear and defend their cause. A variation of flight is freeze. Sometimes we are so caught off guard, and feel so powerless, we just freeze. Day after the day, the Israelites just groaned along, hoping to survive, hoping for change!
A leader, in my mind, is someone who cements their place in history, who fights against the current of his or her time, and refuses to be swept away. They say, “No Pharoah. We don’t want to live in this kind of world.” And they begin to fight and carve out a sense of purpose. What would God have me be and do?
Our second paradigm shift is to move from FEAR to FAITH. In Exodus 1:23 says, “The Israelites groaned because of their difficult labor, they cried out, and their cry for help because of the difficult labor ascended to God.” Exodus 1:23 says, “God saw the Israelites, and God knew.”
But Moses needed to grow in Faith. And faith is seeing what God sees, and knowing what God knows. So, God appears to him in a burning bush and says, Exodus 2:7-8, “I have observed the misery of my people in Egypt, and have heard them crying out because of their oppressors. I know about their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians. . .” But then as we saw last week, God tells Moses in Exodus 2:10, “. . . go. . . I am sending you to Pharaoh so that you may lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”
I’ve seen it in my own life, and across three decades of leadership. When God puts a call on our life, it’s like fight, flight, or freeze all over again! When were called, the fear, the dread, the magnitude of God and the moment, our self-generated tsunami of insecurities come flooding. “Who am I? What shall I say? What shall I do? What if people question my faith, my experiences? What if people don’t follow or obey? What if they ask this or that?” A variation of flight, is making self-crippling excuses. “I can’t speak. I’m Elmer Fudd. Abee, ahbee, ahbee… I’m dull of mind.”
Our only hope is to realize that God doesn’t share our limitations. “I am who I am.” And, “Do not fear, I will be with you!” It’s the same thing Jesus told Apostles in Matthew 28. Some believed; some doubted. But Jesus said “Go, I am sending you to the nations… Make disciples, baptize, teach people to obey everything I’ve commanded. (But don’t freak out!) I’m with you always to end of the age.”
A leader, in my mind, places their full confidence in God’s sufficiency. “Apart from me” Jesus said “you can do nothing.” But with God all things are possible—and we watch how Moses can go on this very real, very human, very torturous journey from flight to fight, from fear to faith. We shouldn't suppose we’ll be exempt.
Our third paradigm shift is to move from FOE to FRIEND. I believe this is the hardest shift of all. To move from flight to fight, your view of self. You can matter! To move from fear to faith, you have to change your view of God. Your confidence in God has to sort of eclipse your own sense of fear and inadequacy. But this third paradigm shift requires you change your view of people. The reason most of us are neurotic control freaks is because we don’t trust other people. By default, we hold people at arm’s length. We distrust. We’re suspicious and self-protective. We maintain dividing walls of hostility. We make lists—who is for me, who is against me?
Implied in the word “leader” or “influencer” is notion of moving and affecting people! If you just want to be led, then just be a follower. But if it’s true leadership and influence you seek, that can only happen with others! Case in point: Jesus’ first order of mission was to build a community of friends around himself. Jesus didn’t just call twelve random men, but rather men he “desired” and even enjoyed being with. Throughout the gospels, the Twelve proved to be selfish, self-centered, self-protective, and self-aggrandizing. They could be fleshly, worldly, fearful, dull, short-sighted, impulsive, petty, political. Every circus needs clowns right?
Why did Jesus need these clowns? Any one of Twelve at some point could have been called a FOE. Jesus could have disqualified these guys over and over again for a hundred reasons. You’ve maybe never considered this… but at the core of our mission is converting foes into friends. There is this pivotal moment in John 15:15 where Jesus says to the Twelve, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” The whole cornerstone of friendship is shared purpose, faith, and mission! A leader can have all the faith in the world, but if he lives on an island by himself, of what good is he or she to God?
Jesus kept pursuing the Twelve as friends no matter how profound their excuses, mistakes, or betrayals. Even as Judas betrays Jesus, Jesus calls him “friend.” With friends like Judas, who needs enemies? Jesus didn’t come to lead, influence, or save Himself. He came to seek, influence, lead, and save the lost.
Through Moses, God wanted to save the whole nation of Israel. Listen to Exodus 2:16-18 carefully, “Go and assemble the elders of Israel and say to them: The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has appeared to me and said: I have paid close attention to you and to what has been done to you in Egypt. 17 And I have promised you that I will bring you up from the misery of Egypt to. . . a land flowing with milk and honey. 18 They will listen to what you say. Then you, along with the elders of Israel, must go to the king of Egypt and say to him: The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Now please let us go on a three-day trip into the wilderness so that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.”
If you think you’re a leader but no one is with you, you’re really just taking a hike. Don’t lose sight of God’s purpose! God’s purpose isn’t just to have a leader, it’s to create a people for himself. Leadership is never an end itself. I think of 1 Peter 2:9-10 , “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
Jesus kept enlarging that circle of friends around himself… from 2 or 3, to twelve, to women and many believers, to 50, 70, 120, 500, even thousands on Pentecost. And why? Because God doesn’t just want to dwell eternally (exclusively) with Himself and His Son Jesus. No, God wants a people for his own possession. Multitudes in worship, in heaven. Yes, it’s frustrating. Yes, it’s laborious. Yes, you can end up getting crucified by the very people you’ve come to save. People can be “. . . ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’” But that's the point. They need help!
Read Exodus. Moses had to rely on Aaron to be his mouthpiece lead others. Moses had to rely on the Elders of the people. Moses biggest challenge wasn’t confronting Pharoah; it was leading others! And if you think leading others is hard, try leading others through others! Try leading sheep through other sheep.
Was the pinnacle of Moses’ leadership leading Israel out of Egypt? Was it the Passover, the Exodus, dead Egyptians soldiers and their chariots floating down the Nile? Was it Moses’ celebration in Exodus 15? Or was it the wilderness, where he had to lead the Israelite community, as they grumbled against him? Where they’d wish they were still in Egypt, where they’d resent all God had done for them?
Some amazing moments came in the Wilderness. In Exodus 17, the Israelites came up against the Amalekites in battle. As they waged battle, Moses stood on the hilltop with God’s staff raised in his hand. So long as the staff was raised, the Israelites prevailed; but when Moses arms grew tired, or he lowered the staff, the tide of battle would change. It wasn’t until Aaron and Hur came alongside Moses, and stood with him in prayer, holding his arms up, that victory came. Moses needed friends!
In Exodus 18 workaholic Moses sends his wife and children back to his father-in-law Jethro, because of the demands of leading Israel. When Jethro comes, Moses recounts all the hardships he’d encountered, and how God was with him. There was a lot to celebrate. But Jethro noticed how Moses would judge the people (from morning to evening), while all these people were standing around waiting. Not only were cases backlogged, but capable leaders were standing around idle. Moses thought it was his job to resolve every single dispute and need!
But Jethro says, Exodus 20:17-23, “What you’re doing is not good. . . You will certainly wear out both yourself and these people who are with you, because the task is too heavy for you. You can’t do it alone. 19 Now listen to me; I will give you some advice, and God be with you. You be the one to represent the people before God and bring their cases to him. 20 Instruct them about the statutes and laws, and teach them the way to live and what they must do. 21 But you should select from all the people able men, God-fearing, trustworthy, and hating dishonest profit. Place them over the people as commanders of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. 22 They should judge the people at all times. Then they can bring you every major case but judge every minor case themselves. In this way you will lighten your load, and they will bear it with you. 23 If you do this, and God so directs you, you will be able to endure, and also all these people will be able to go home satisfied.”
God's Kingdom consists of leaders or leaders of leaders of leaders. One last example. In Numbers 11 family after family is grumbling. Moses becomes so angry and provoked, he blasts God, “Why are you angry with me, and why do you burden me with all these people? 12 Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth so you should tell me, ‘Carry them at your breast, as a nursing mother carries a baby,’ to the land that you swore to give their ancestors? 13 Where can I get meat to give all these people? For they are weeping to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ 14 I can’t carry all these people by myself. They are too much for me. 15 If you are going to treat me like this, please kill me right now if I have found favor with you, and don’t let me see my misery anymore.”
In Numbers 11:16-17, God tells Moses, “Bring me seventy men from Israel known to you as elders and officers of the people. Take them to the tent of meeting and have them stand there with you. 17 Then I will come down and speak with you there. I will take some of the Spirit who is on you and put the Spirit on them. They will help you bear the burden of the people, so that you do not have to bear it by yourself.”
To me a leader is that person who though he wants to complain, vent, quit, take flight, or at times, even rather die than lead any further… keeps enlarging that circle of friends. Dear Leader, Dear Moses, the world isn't against you. God isn't against you. Keep trusting God. Keep bringing people together. Let God take a measure of his Spirit, and your spirit, and put it on others. Keep inviting people to pray alongside you. Keep inviting leaders to share in the work, to lead to their capacity. Reflect long and hard on Jesus' statement: “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”
Leadership comes down to Fight or Flight? Faith or Fear? Friends or Foes?