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Part 14 of 16
Cloud Of Witnesses
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God created you in his image. When we read in Genesis that God created human beings in his own image—male and female—we're not talking about physical appearance. Rather, God chose to put some of his own characteristics inside of you. You don't have all of God's characteristics; you are not God. But in his goodness, he placed some of those characteristics within you, and you bear his image in the world.
If you bear his image, that means he put purpose and intention in your life.
Ephesians tells us: "For we are God's masterpiece." When an artist creates something, they're either proud of it or they're not. If they're not proud of it, they would never call it a masterpiece. Yet scripture says we are God's masterpiece. Despite what you've done, despite where you've been, there's a God who looks past all of that and says, "I can use that. That's good."
We're created as God's masterpiece, created anew in Christ Jesus. Why? So that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
The psalmist David puts it beautifully in Psalm 139:
You made all the delicate inner parts of my body and you knit me together in my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex. Your workmanship is marvelous. How well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion and as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.
God thought about you. God created you with intention. Can you imagine living a life with no idea that you had purpose? Life would be meaningless. But God didn't create us as robots. He gave us free will and put uniqueness inside every single one of us. Why? Because it gives meaning to your life. He actually wants to use you for something.
Today we're going to study a man named Aaron. He's a real person who God used in real ways, who committed a really great sin, yet God still wants to redeem him. My hope is that you'll see yourself in his story and realize: I'm a real person with unique gifts, but I also create really great sin—and God could probably use me.
Let me give you some important context. Pastor CJ has been walking us through the historical figures of the Bible this year, starting with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God changed Jacob's name to Israel, and Israel had 12 sons who became the 12 tribes of Israel.
But here's what matters: when Jacob was on his deathbed blessing his sons, there were two he actually didn't bless—he cursed them. One of those was his son Levi. Jacob said, "Because in your anger, you used your sword for violence... you will not have a land for your own." All of Levi's descendants became known as Levites—and Aaron was a Levite. Hold that in your head.
Aaron was the brother of Moses. Last week, if you were here, Pastor CJ talked about how God used Moses to release the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Today we're being introduced to Moses's brother, Aaron.
The first time we meet Aaron is when Moses is talking to God saying, "Please don't send me. Send anybody other than me because I'm not the right guy." We all do this. We look at ourselves and think, I'm not good enough. Somebody else is better. Are you sure you're talking to me, God?
Finally, God says, "All right, you're still going, Moses, but I'm going to give you a helper."
Here's what God tells Moses:
What about your brother, Aaron, the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you and his heart will be glad when he sees you. You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth. I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. He will speak to the people for you. And it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him.
God says to Moses, "I get it. You're hesitating. But here's the good thing: I put some pretty amazing characteristics in this guy named Aaron who happens to be your older brother. I'm going to use him." Because they both have unique giftings, God sees it in both of them, calls it out of them, and they go to make a difference in the world together.
I don't have a lot of time to talk about marriage, but I want to put a thought in your head. The Bible says that when you were created, you bear some of God's characteristics. The Bible also says that your spouse, when they were created, also bears those characteristics. And when you are married, you become one flesh.
Do you realize that God is taking the best of you and the best of your spouse, combining you together to be one living, walking example of the gospel to the world? That's intention. Marriage isn't about covering your loneliness. Marriage is about providing you a suitable helper in your life to help you navigate this life and be effective in the world. God combined Aaron and Moses so they could accomplish more together.
God says to Aaron, "Hey Aaron, I see in you something that's special and I want to use it."
Have you ever had somebody call something out in you? Something that they see in you that's special? Often times, because we don't hear it from other people, we assume we know what we're good at.
I thought I knew my gift growing up—it was singing. I was confident of it. In fourth grade, I was in the Christmas play at my church in a town of about 4,500 people. As a fourth-grader, you're basically the top of the food chain in elementary, and you get the really important roles. That year, in the story of Jesus, they made me a rock and roll sheep. Someone in the church made a homemade sheep costume. I had sunglasses. They traced out a guitar on cardboard, drew it with a Sharpie, and I got to play that on stage.
At the last dress rehearsal before the weekend performance, we were singing like crazy. In my mind, the entire town was about to show up to see me as rock and roll sheep. In reality, the only people who showed up were the parents who had to be there.
All of a sudden, Penny, the volunteer choir director, said, "Stop. Stop. Stop. One of you is singing off-key." She said she'd walk around and figure out who it was. We kept singing, and suddenly she got right in front of me and said, "Stop. Stop. Stop. You. Your voice is really bad, and you're too close to the microphone. I'm going to need you to mouth the words."
Fourth grade. For 80 people. I thought, She's wrong. So when that performance came that Sunday, I sang at the top of my lungs. It wasn't until 7th grade that my choir teacher came to me and said, "Hey, I got to tell you something. You're really bad at singing." Then I finally was like, "Oh, that's a general awareness."
We often have people tell us what we're bad at. But does anybody ever tell you what you're good at?
When I was in high school, the opposite happened. I had a youth leader named Ned Wise. We had gone through three youth pastors in four years, mostly because my friends and I were kind of jerks. I remember Ned came to me and said, "Hey, I want you to know I see something in you. I want to invite you to be part of a student leadership team because you have a gift of leadership."
I was like, "Really?"
He said, "Yeah, you can lead these guys one way or you can lead them the other. And you have a gift of talking. You're really good at communicating. I want you to be on this team."
I don't know what it does for you when somebody calls something out in you, but to have an adult outside of my parents who actually cared about me as a high school kid say something intentional about me—it was transformative. That changed my life.
Has anybody ever had what we would call an "I see in you" conversation? Where someone looked at you and said, "Here's what I see in you." I'm guessing in a room this large across all our campuses, there's a lot of people who would say, "Actually no. Nobody's ever intentionally sat with me and said, 'Hey, I see something in you that's amazing.'"
Why? Because we live in a world that loves to criticize, tell us what we did wrong, give negative reviews online. We're really slow to praise people. I don't get it.
Here's what I'm going to ask you to do this week. If nobody has ever really intentionally told you what you are good at, find somebody you trust and love and say, "Hey, can I ask you a question? What is it about me? What has God given me that you think makes me unique? What qualities do I have that I could be using and be effective?"
You might think, "I would never do that. That's embarrassing. That's selfish and self-serving."
Here's what I'm going to tell you as a pastor: To not ask that question is actually super selfish and self-serving. Why? Because God was good enough to create you special, to make you unique, to put his characteristics inside of you. To never use that gift and share it with the world—that's actually selfish. To hold it to yourself, to not recognize that God put intention and purpose in your life—that's actually selfish.
So get outside your comfort zone. Stop feeling embarrassed. Go and ask somebody you trust and love, "Hey, would you help me identify some things in me that make me unique and special?"
Then do one more thing. Find someone else you know and love and say, "Hey, today I want to be really intentional. I want you to know that I see in you a gift. I see in you leadership, and you need to be using it. I see in you empathy. You can feel the world around you and know what people are experiencing. Do you know that you have that? And you should be sharing it with other people. I see in you generosity. The way you live your life is so open-handed. Most people don't do that. Would you be even more generous with your life? I see in you a gift of working with kids. I see in you compassion."
Whatever it might be, do that for someone. Because the moment you do that, it might ignite a fire in their life where they think, "I can do this." I believe that when God put these gifts inside of us, he put them there for a reason and for purpose.
Now Moses and Aaron are working together, leading the Israelites as they wander in the desert. They face enemies, and God has given Moses a staff that represents God's power and God's presence in the nation of Israel. It's not because of Moses or Aaron that they got out of Egypt, and it's not because of them that they're being led. It's God's power leading them everywhere they go.
When they approach the Amalekites, this is what happens:
The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, "Choose some of your men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow, I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands." So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered. And Moses, Aaron, and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning. But whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone, put it under him, and he sat on it. And Aaron and Hur held his hands up, one on one side, one on the other, so that his hands remained steady until sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekites with the army with the sword.
Here we see Aaron serving in a second-tier role. He's up there with Moses, and every time Moses' arms are up, they're winning. Every time they drop, they're losing. Moses' arms grow tired. All of a sudden he needs help.
And Aaron doesn't think, "Actually, my gift is talking. So Moses, I'm just going to tell you how to keep your arms in the air. That's what I should do." No, he thinks, "Oh my gosh, I can serve in this moment. There's a need, and I will meet the need."
There's a lot of talk about leadership in our world today. Much of it says, "Hey, you need to identify what you only can do, and you should do that." And you should. But often that leads to a mindset of leadership that's about power, about authority, about being special at something.
What we often lose is the leadership that Jesus modeled when he came to this earth. Jesus had all authority and all power. He had all the characteristics. Yet he willingly chose to lower himself in an act of service to those around him. He sees a need, and he fills the need.
Here's a question for you: Are you using your life to see a need and fill a need?
Pastor CJ often says this around our staff: "Hey, if Jesus is above us, then nothing he did is beneath us." It's about trying to figure out: what is the need right here?
There's a lot of talk about leadership in our world today. Much of it says, "Hey, you need to identify what you only can do, and you should do that." And you should. But often that leads to a mindset of leadership that's about power, about authority, about being special at something. What we often lose is the leadership that Jesus modeled when he came to this earth.
Jesus had all authority and all power. He had all the characteristics. Yet he willingly chose to lower himself in an act of service to those around him. He sees a need, and he fills the need. Are you using your life to see a need and fill a need?
Pastor CJ often says this around our staff: "Hey, if Jesus is above us, then nothing he did is beneath us." It's about trying to figure out: what is the need right here?
How can I be most effective in my church? There were so many of you on Friday night across all of our campuses that showed up at Carmel for special needs prom. It was one of the greatest acts of servant leadership I've seen our church do. But what if everyone in our church took that posture every weekend? What if we asked: how can I make this body, because the body is made up of many people with many different gifts, how can I make this body most effective in the kingdom in this world?
What if we said: how can I be most effective in my home? What if I approached walking in the door of my home like, how do I serve my family? What if I said, how can I be most effective in my neighborhood? How can I be most effective in my community? How can I be most effective at work?
What if we started asking the question: what are the needs around here and how can my life go ahead and fill that?
Aaron had gifts, he had talents, he was willing to be a servant leader. But then he makes what I would call the greatest sin in all of the Old Testament.
Moses has led the people out of slavery. They are now a group of people with no home, no law, no morality. They are completely free from anything—but that's not good. When there's no understanding of how we interact and lead as a community, problems arise.
God establishes government, morality, and the law—the Ten Commandments—to help Moses know how the people will live and interact with each other. God gives the first two Commandments:
"You shall have no gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them for I, your God, am a jealous God."
When Moses tells the people, they respond with one voice: "Everything the Lord has said, we will do."
Then Moses goes back up the mountain to meet with God. He is gone for forty days. As he's gone, Aaron is left in charge. The people begin to wonder where Moses is, and they come to Aaron: "Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us out of Egypt, we don't know what happened to him."
Aaron answered them, "Take off your gold earrings that your wives and your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me." All the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they had handed him and made it into an idol cast into the shape of a calf. Then they said, "These are your gods, oh Israel, who brought you out of Egypt."
When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, "Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord." The next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterwards, they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.
When Moses approached the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing, and his anger burned. He threw down the tablets—the Ten Commandments—breaking them into pieces at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf that they had made and burned it in the fire, then ground it into powder, scattered it in the water, and made the Israelites drink it.
Moses said to Aaron, "What did these people do to you that you led them into such great sin?" Aaron answered, "Don't be angry, my Lord. You know how prone these people are to evil. They said to me, 'Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us out of Egypt, we don't know what's happened to him.' So I told them, 'Whoever has jewelry, take it off.' They gave me the gold. I threw it in the fire and I don't know how it happened. Out came this calf."
How often do we do what Aaron just did? We know that we know that we know. The law is actually written on our hearts. Those of us who have accepted Christ have the Holy Spirit to guide us. We know what is right. Yet in a moment we compromise. We jump into sin.
What was Aaron's response? First it was fear. Moses isn't here. I don't know what to do. I feel alone. I don't want to carry the weight of this myself. Then combine that fear with pressure. Everybody wants me to do this. And the next thing you know, he just compromises.
Do you do that? I do that. I get into a moment and I compromise.
Let me tell you about my worst parenting moment in the last couple years. A moment that was super humbling for me and a moment of sin.
A couple years ago, my son got his first job at Chick-fil-A. We worked out an agreement: part of his paycheck goes to savings and part goes to spending money. He got really into sneakers. He would do these things called drops—you enter a raffle, and when you win, you get the ability to buy the shoe at full price. They're all more expensive than store shoes, and often because they're so rare, as soon as you buy them, they're worth two, three, or four times what they cost.
Corbin bought this one pair of shoes that I thought was pretty cool. He was 16, and we wear the same size shoes. I said, "Hey, buddy, can I wear your shoes to work tomorrow?" He said, "Dad, do not get anything on those shoes." I said, "Buddy, I am a grown man."
I was wearing these $400 shoes to church for an all-day staff meeting where we covered mission, vision, and values. We had coffee and drinks all day, and then lunch was all piled in these trash cans. At the end of the day, there were four giant trash cans overflowing. I thought, "I can't leave somebody else to take this trash out." So I bottled up the trash and carried it out to the dumpsters.
What I didn't know was that in one of the bags, there was a hole in the bottom. As I walked, there was a string of coffee juice that went back and forth across my left shoe. I threw it all in the trash can and walked back in. As I looked down, I went, "Oh, no."
Fear. These are my son's shoes. Pressure. But then I realized, "Oh, I've seen the commercials. When there is a giant oil spill and baby ducks need cleaned, you grab Dawn soap and you can get those things back to new." I went into the kitchen of the church and threw my left shoe under water and grabbed the Dawn soap and scrubbed that bad boy. I got done and I'm like, that works. I put it on my left foot.
But here's what they don't tell you: when you're scrubbing a bright, beautiful baby duck with Dawn soap, it actually takes half the color out of the duck. Because when I put the left shoe next to the right shoe, now they didn't match. So what did I do? I grabbed the right shoe off, threw the Dawn soap on it, and scrubbed that bad boy. I got done and they matched.
Instead of telling Corbin, I just put it back in his closet. I thought, "Only somebody who knew what the shoe looked like before would even know. These look like they're supposed to look this way." I compounded a mistake instead of coming clean.
What takes a sneaker guy fifteen seconds? To walk into his room and go, "Dad, what's wrong with my shoes?" What a horrible, humbling moment to look at your 16-year-old son and be like, "Man, Dad sinned. I'm sorry, buddy."
But super humbling when you have a 16-year-old who forgives you in that moment. "Wow, I felt like a really bad person right then." But he forgave me.
Here's the thing about God: the one who knows you the most, he loves you the best. He knows those inner desires, those feelings that you have, those thoughts that come into your life. He knows the sin that you've tried to hide in secret. Yet he chooses to love you the best.
When we hide our sin, we hold on to it in shame. And often it defines who we are as a person. In fact, it holds us back. But when our sin comes into the light, it has a new opportunity. It has an opportunity not to define you anymore, but to become the defining moment of your life.
Does your sin define you? Or does that become a defining moment for you?
Is there something that's holding you back today that you're holding on to, that maybe you need to bring it out into the light and expose it? Because God does something with that. God redeems that.
After Moses has made the people drink the powdered idol, he heads back up the mountain. He has to meet with God because he's continuing to learn how to lead and run this new nation.
God then gives them something new. God says, "Hey, we need to keep me in front of all these people. So, I'm giving you the design for something called the Tabernacle. It'll be the tent at the center of camp. It's where my presence as God will live among the people. This tent will guide us where you need to go as you wander in the desert. And eventually that tent becomes the temple where God's presence lives."
In the Tabernacle, there will be priests that serve there. They will be mediators between an imperfect people and a holy God. God says, "There's a tribe that I want to run this Tabernacle, to serve as priests and ministers. They're going to be the ones that transport it, move it, keep it clean."
God says to Moses, "I want the Levites to do it." When people get to the promised land, everyone else will have lands that become theirs. The Levites will have no land to call their own, but God says, "I'm their God and I'm going to care for them."
God redeems the curse.
As people come and offer sacrifices to the Lord, part of those sacrifices goes to care for the Levite tribe. In the middle of the Tabernacle, there's a place called the Holy of Holies. It's where God's presence is going to live. Once a year the high priest comes into the Tabernacle. He comes into the Holy of Holies. He consecrates himself and he offers the sacrifices for the sins of the nation. He acts as the ultimate mediator between unholy people and a holy God.
And Moses says, "Aaron is going to be the first high priest."
Just moments after Aaron led the nation into the greatest sin that they could possibly commit—worshipping other gods and creating an idol, breaking the first and second Commandments—God says that's my high priest.
We think our sin defines us. But God. Say two words with me out loud together: But God.
We think we can't be qualified. We think we don't have what it takes. We think our sin defines us. But God.
God's story is that he redeems you and he redeems me. He put inside you something that he wants to use in this world. He's even uniquely created you, despite all the things you've ever done. God was ready to redeem you.
What you may think is "Man, I'm cursed." God says, "I'm going to bless it."
I would just challenge you this week: walk out of here with some confidence. If you're at one of our campuses, if you're online, if you're in the prisons—God, he sees you. Your sin doesn't define you. But God. He redeems it.
