September 27, 2015 Text: 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29
Dear Friends in Christ,
What in life have you become accustomed to? Just this morning many of us have been blessed with a hot shower, a fluffy towel to dry off with, a refrigerator that kept our milk cold for the morning cereal, the local newspaper delivered to our address and a vehicle that transported us to God’s House. On top of that we enjoy vacations, dinners out, credit cards at Macy’s or Bergner’s, paying for our kids extracurricular activities, gasoline to get to those activities, cable TV and Wi-Fi, phones that can hook us up with people halfway around the world.
We have become quite used to our little luxuries. What is one thing you would hate to give up? For me it would be soft toilet paper. I took it with me to college, I made sure Karson had it at college and it was my first gift to the congregation when we moved into this building. I have become accustomed to a certain comfort. You each have your own little things that you enjoy as well. Giving them up would be hard. Israel is facing this question as they come out of Egypt and they are not too happy. The complaining. This is not what they are accustomed too. But the Lord shows Israel and us in our text that by giving the Spirit, God gives life well . . .
“BEYOND THE MANNER TO WHICH WE’VE BECOME ACCUSTOMED”
You and I are quite accustomed to our manner and standard of living. Israel remembers they way they had lived and eaten in Egypt. They remembered the fantasy but forgot the reality of their slavery. Selfishness and boredom with God’s providence led Israel to grumble.
Oh, we are happy as long as things go our way, but at the first sign of trouble or conflict, we sing a different tune. I learned of a family this week where one of the parents took a $30,000 pay cut. What if that happened to us? What little luxury would be the first to go? Would it be grumbling or contentment?
Meanwhile, Moses is having his own little meltdown. He is fed-up with his God-given duties, which have become heavier than he was accustomed to. He’d spent forty years off by himself tending a few sheep, when suddenly God puts him in charge of millions. Now they are grumbling and he is complaining of carrying the burden of these men and women. It’s lonely at the top.
We also complain and become fatigued by the burdens that we carry. The bills that have to be paid, the sickness that won’t go away, the laundry that keeps piling up, then something breaks on our car or in our house and we want to know why the Lord is giving us this load.
Now God acts to help Moses, and another player in our text, Joshua, has his accustomed manner of living upset. He is used to the God-ordained order. Moses as leader. Joshua as assistant. But he challenges Moses by trying to stop Eldad and Medad from prophesying. Well intentioned, but misguided.
We work hard to protect our turf, whether at home or work or school or church or family. We look around at others sometimes and become jealous of what they have in terms of power or leadership or skills. We miss our own talents and gifts because we start comparing ourselves with others. Our manner of life can get so messed up.
God gives a different manner of life by giving the Spirit. God shows his people that life can be quite different from the accustomed. He doesn’t give better food, a sabbatical from duties, or confirmation of leadership. God’s answer is to give greater life in the Spirit. He did this by putting his spirit on seventy elders. The food didn’t get better but it was already quite tasty. No time-off was taken but these Spirit-filled men helped Moses. No turf protection needed because the Spirit had all of them working together.
God shows us an unaccustomed lifestyle too. Life is more than food, ease at work, affirmations that “you’re the man!” More than the luxuries that we enjoy. Life is given by the Spirit who as we confess is “the Lord and giver of life.” That life is the life earned for all people when the One who gives the Spirit, the eternal Son of God, laid down His life on the cross. No one is accustomed to gaining life by losing it, but that’s exactly what Jesus did – for Israel, for Moses, for Joshua, for us who through the Spirit believe in Him.
This new life in the Spirit is well beyond that to which we’ve become accustomed. Ever since Pentecost the word of Christ’s saving death has been going to all the world. The Spirit is not given just once to seventy elders or one leader, but as Moses envisioned: “Would that the Lord would put His Spirit on all his people.”
It’s given in Baptism as we are born of water and the Spirit. It’s the life so much richer than that to which we were accustomed. A greater life than found in the world – greater than our things or successes. You have the life of Christ in you, providing everything He knows best. Better than the credit cards, or the phone or the hot shower, even better than the soft toilet paper. This life in Christ has no end.
As Moses came to see, God is, by giving the Spirit in Christ, providing for us very well beyond the little manner to which we’ve become accustomed.
Amen.