SHOW NOTES
The Leadership of Moses, pt7
Leadership in Context with Keith Tucci
Episode 156
Numbers 14:4-8
So they said to one another, “Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt.” Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces in the presence of all the assembly of the congregation of the sons of Israel. Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, of those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes; and they spoke to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, saying, “The land which we passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord is pleased with us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us—a land which flows with milk and honey.”
Good leaders stay focused on the destination, not the conditions.
The 10 spies brought back bad reports. Yet, Caleb and Joshua tore their clothes when they found out the people wanted to go back to Egypt. They saw what Moses saw. They were under authority. They saw the destination. They knew that was where God wanted to bring them.
Circumstances from hell are designed to distract you. Designed to dis-tract you—cause you to lose traction, cause you to stop moving forward. Moses continually dealt with this, yet he never lost the focus on the destination. Every time there was a crisis or an interruption, Moses put it in the context of where they were going.
When you are having circumstances stirred up by hell, you have to put those circumstances in a box. The facts might be accurate, but the Truth is that you will arrive at your destination.
Complainers will always focus on circumstances. Leaders will always focus on the destination. When the circumstance is bigger than the destination, that is where you have to move in faith, hear what God is saying, and see what God is seeing. You have to train people on how to do this. A leader doesn’t just ask people to follow them blindly, but teaches people to see what they are seeing.
When the spies were saying they couldn’t take the land, Moses fell on his face. (Now there is a point where you reason with people, when it is good to lay out facts. In the context of this passage, the facts had already been laid out.) Moses showed with his heart and his actions that they were dealing with something spiritual. He told them that they were only seeing obstacles, that it was a good land, and they were going to take the land.
Numbers 14:8
If the Lord is pleased with us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us—a land which flows with milk and honey.
Moses challenges them that it was not the outward circumstances, the people they had to drive out, but the inward things that had to be driven out. If the Lord was pleased with them, then it was the Lord Who would cause them to rise up. Moses was communicating a “Greater is He who is in me” understanding and revelation.
As a leader, you want to put people in a position and help them understand that their single, greatest advantage is being pleasing to God.
That is what Moses argues. He doesn’t talk about their great army or how they are going to defeat the people. He tells them that the reason they are having a problem is that they had lost the destination and were not being pleasing to God. If they were pleasing to God, then they could take the land.
At the end of the day, it is the audience of One that matters. Am I pleasing God? Did I please God? Am I determined to please God? It’s the “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God” remedy.
If your car is broken down on the side of the road, that doesn’t change your destination. Your whole life doesn’t begin to revolve around that. You identify where on the road you are so that you can get to the next place.
If you find yourself complaining, overly focused on circumstances (that are real), or overwhelmed by the circumstances, then you have lost focus on the destination that God wants you to go to. Don’t lose the destination. Don’t lose the vision. Keep imparting that vision to people as you go. Help them to see the destination.
Join us next week as Keith Tucci continues to put leadership truth in the context of the local church. And as always, please like, share, rate/review, and invite others to listen. See you next week!
