Whta Am I To Do With These People? – Sermon 23 March, 2014

What Am I To Do With These People?

I hope and pray not to go like Moses to God with this question.

“What am I to do with these People?”

In today’s reading we see that Moses, the one whom God had called and instructed to get the people of Israel out of Egypt and out of their bondage, reluctantly went to God.

It is clear that the duty of the leader is to do the best they can to lead the people who have been entrusted to their leadership in the right path.

In the case of a spiritual leader the challenge is to make the people listen to God and obey His commandments, as was the case with the people of Israel.

In the passage that Geoff read today we saw that the whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin and travelled from place to place. We are sure that the journey was not an easy journey. They did not have traveling facilities of modern times, easy accommodation, many means to cater the people with food and drinks stoping at rest areas. On the contrary, we see here that there was no water for the people to drink.

Water is one of our basic needs, we have to quench our thirst and not get dehydrated. The need for water by the people of Israel was a genuine request. But the issue here is the way they tried to handle the situation.

We see that the first thing they did was to quarrel with their leader Moses and demand saying, “Give us water to drink”.

Quarrelling and blaming others, when the problem was a matter of trusting or not trusting the Lord God, who had done so many things for them before the Pharaoh let them go. They had seen what God did to the Egyptians with the plagues and in particular with the Passover when God literally spared the first born of Israelites and killed the first born of the Egyptians, including the Pharaoh’s.

In this short passage we see three things:

1. Quarrel and demand

In verse two, we see strange behaviour from the people, they quarrel, in other words, they argue and express their demand. Instead of being thankful for all the things that God had done to them, they want to have more. By arguing with Moses they were in reality questioning God and testing him. Moses said: “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test?” People have acted in a similar way at all times. Regardless of what God does, people are not satisfied and demand more and more. The situation has not changed much since that time. Sometimes we do the same, we demand more and more. We do not have a grateful heart to all God has done to us during the years; as individuals and as a community.

2. Grumble

After they quarrelled with Moses, they grumbled against Moses, God’s chosen, who had accepted the difficult task of leading the people of Israel; first out of Egypt and then through the desert. God chooses leaders to take care of His people; and the chosen ones struggle until they are ready to accept the challenging task of leading the people but the people grumble and question the service rendered under the instructions given by God. In this case even they question Moses saying: “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”

God does incredible things in our lives but we still are not satisfied. Just as we face difficulty and a new challenge we grumble and question him.

I am reminded of a good song we used to sing in youth group many years ago. The chorus starts “Oh, they grumble on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, grumble on Thursday, too!”

Grumbling is not a laughing matter to God. The Israelites were wandering through the desert for forty years, because they did not trust God enough and yet, God still provided for them. He supplied them with manna for food, their clothes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell.

It is so easy for us to shake our heads in disgust at their response to God’s provision. But we must confess, we often grumble about our circumstances, too. If we are not careful, the grumble song could become a reality for us. We might easily miss God’s blessings if we concentrate on our problems. Instead of following the bad example of the Israelites, we need to follow Paul’s teaching in I Thess. 5:18 “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

3. Moses goes to God

“What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.” Moses seeks God’s help. He goes to Him with the question. He was desperate and tired of the complaints, so he goes to God. He even believes that they were planning to kill him, because they were not happy with the situation. A few days ago I was speaking with a couple who are here from overseas. They had a situation in the church where they are members and they said: “We are good at sending ministers away when we are not happy with them”. The story is the same at the time of Moses, when the church was established in the first century and now at present.

Moses, God’s servant goes to God seeking advice and help.

4. God’s solution

As Moses seeks God’s help; God resolves the matter. When the servant of the Lord goes to God seeking help, usually God handles the matter. As long as we are ready to go to God and ask for help, He will act and solve the problem. As we read earlier, Paul said: “What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe… God makes things grow”. Similarly we don’t have the ability to resolve the issues. Only God holds the keys and has the answers. In this situation, God commanded, Moses obeyed and the people got the water they needed.

If we read the Old Testament carefully, we see that God’s people were not ready to follow the commandments and always questioned God and chose other God’s. They sinned and alienated themselves from God. As Paul says; “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. To regain the righteous status, we need to reconcile. And this reconciliation happens only with a sacrifice, which was done through Christ our Lord and Saviour.

We should be faithful people.

We should follow His commands.

We should put all our trust in Him.

We should not put God to the test.

We should do what He says.

We should not question God and listen to what He says.

Otherwise we will be like the Israelites for whom Moses said: “What am I to do with these people”.

We should be God’s people who trust and obey Him.