One Year Bible, Thursday, February 3rd. - The Most Important Commandment!
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Israel Defeats the Amalekites
1. Today we are introduced to Joshua, who will lead the Israelites in battle and eventually be Moses' successor.
2. The key to the Israelites success over the Amalekites is when Moses is lifting up his hands in prayer.
3. When Moses got tired Aaron and Hur got a seat for him to sit on and held up his arms.
Victory comes when we obey the Lord, and raise our hands in prayer. We all need others to pray for us when we are weak and can't.
Jethro’s Visit to Moses
1. When Jethro, Moses' father in law had heard about all Moses had done, he came to visit Moses. Moses bowed down in respect to him.
2. Jethro taught Moses an invaluable leadership lesson. He saw Moses was trying to settle all the disputes between the people, and he was getting very tired. So he iustructed Moses to split up the people in 1000's. 100's, 50's and 10's. Note this reminds us how many people there were.
3. Moses equipped capable men to handle 95% of the disputes and only the most difficult ones came to him to judge.
This is a great leadership principle for any Christian leader especially pastors. So often leaders try to do everything themselves and end up getting burnt out or worse. Pastor are to equip the people for the work of ministry, so they can spend time teaching and preaching and studying God's Word. These words are every bit as relevant to us today 3,000 years aga.
The Lord Reveals Himself and Sinai
1. God calls Moses up on the mountain and give Moses the third major covenant in the Old Testament. (The first two being the Noachic and Abrahamic covenants).
"Now if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth; for all the earth belongs to me. 6 And you will be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation."
2. God specifically spoke in a cloud so the people could hear him talking to Moses, which would lead to the people trusting in Moses' leadership.
3. The Lord promised to come down further on the mountain but gave strict instructions about how and how not to approach him.
God rarely physically shows up like this on earth. To do it, he chose a person Moses to reveal himself to. Then, he gave clear instructions on how respectful they should be of Him when they approached him. Do we do the same? Do we revere God and approach him with humility?
The Most Important Commandment.
1. Jesus makes it clear the most important commandment is to love God with all of your heart and your neighbors as yourself. This sums up the ten commandments.
Whose Son is the Messiah
1. Now it was Jesus' time to ask the Pharisees a question.
2. They correctly answer that the Messiah was the Son of David. When Jesus quoted the psalm where David said, "The Lord said to my Lord", he asked them how David could call him Lord if He was his father. They had no answer for Jesus.
Jesus Criticizes the Jewish Leaders
Jesus offers a blistering rebuke of the Jewish leaders. Why?
1. They tied heavy burdens on people that they themselves could never handle.
2. They were prideful about their position. They wore expenisive clothing and robes and loved to sit in the places of honor in the synagogue.
3. They wanted to be called Rabbi in the marketplace to show how important they were.
Jesus taught the disicples a different kind of leadership. Whoever wants to be great must become a servant he said. Whoever wants to be first, must be slave of all.
We see a lot about leadership in these passages. Moses learns to delegate. Jesus teaches us what leaders do not look like? Jesus was by far the best leader who ever walked this earth. He lead with humility and served others even to his death on the cross. He spent three years teaching the disciples how to lead, and they did pretty well after Jesus died and rose again.
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