True success in God’s work is never measured only in terms of human effort but by the evidence of His hand at work. Moses, though used greatly to lead Israel from bondage, faltered when he trusted his temper rather than God’s instruction, revealing both the frailty of the flesh and the faithfulness of grace. Each believer faces the same inner conflict between flesh and Spirit, yet victory comes only as we keep in step with the Spirit who dwells within us. Christ alone can make the Christian life succeed, for He not only died for us but lives to empower us daily in His service.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] In preparing for today, I had been somewhat driven to look at the question of success or failure in ministry, and in particular what caused that was that in the study for just the general teaching we’ve been doing through the Sunday mornings, we’ve come to understand the ministry of Moses, the ministry of the Old Testament leaders like Saul, the ministry of some of the prophets in the Old Testament, and the issue is whether or not these particular people were successful or were they failures. If you applied it to King Saul, I think overall he was a total failure. if he applied it to Moses I don’t think he could say that I think the truth is that when you investigate Moses and his leadership of the children of Israel he was both a success and a failure to some degree and the success was of course

[00:01:10] that it was under his leadership that God was able to lead the children of Israel out of the bondage of Egypt it was under God’s leadership through Moses, yes, but I think it was God’s work that there was constituted what’s called the Old Covenant, the giving of the law, when he took the two tablets of stone down to the people and they were constituted a nation under God through the leadership of Moses. So he was a pretty big success. But on the other hand, he had a bit of a failing and in his failing, there came a time of him getting cranky with the children of Israel. I was going to take you through a lot of verses where he’s complaining to the Lord about how bad they are and how unfair it is that God’s lumped them all on him. We won’t look at the verses, but he really got cranky with God

[00:02:11] and God had been telling him to address this rock that represented a travelling rock, a big boulder that kept following him through the wilderness. It was actually a representation of Christ. Christ is the rock. And at one stage, Moses had been led to strike the rock. It was a bit of an early articulation by God of the necessity of Christ to be struck for the healing of his people, for the help of his people. And when Moses got cranky, he went and struck it a second time. And that sort of broke the analogy that God was using because Jesus only needs to die for us once. And once he’s died on the cross, risen again, he’s paid for our sins. There is no more for him to have to do to keep you forgiven. As I’ve been repeating all the time these last weeks, it’s not that we love God, but that God loved us

[00:03:20] and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. And Jesus on the cross finished it. It is finished, one of his final cries. I think the final one was, into your hands, Father, I commend my spirit. But Jesus only needed, or the rock only needed, to be struck once. But Moses got cranky with God, complained about the people, criticised God for lumping all of them on him. They were pretty difficult, mind you, but he was a failure in his personal buoyancy of walking in what God had done. And as a punishment for that, he was disallowed to go into the promised land. So was Moses a success? He was a success to lead them out of the land of bondage and to lead them through a generation’s worth through the wilderness. But he never got to lead them into the promised land. And that’s a rather sad thing.

[00:04:25] Now, I don’t know how aware you are of the different ways to understand the Old Testament and the New Testament teaching for us as Christians, and that there is more than just teaching how to get into God’s good books. Be forgiven. No one’s smiling at you. You’re okay for heaven. That is all true, but it’s just the beginning of understanding that we need to grow. And just as much as Christ was the one who championed our forgiveness, he’s also the one who champions our learning to walk with him and empowering us. The particular style of theology that I’m now articulating, many different people in different times have believed the Bible this way. One of them’s the Apostle Paul. If you read the book of Romans, you’re going to hear what I’m saying just now. But it’s not only that Jesus died for you,

[00:05:25] but that Jesus is the way to help you live the Christian life. And that trust in the risen Christ in your life is sometimes dubbed as Keswick teaching because there was a time when famous preachers in the town of Keswick had a big convention that went and they still hold it every year. And all around the world, such similar conventions got started up and so we here in Brisbane have had a Keswick convention. They were renaming that place up there, where it’s held. They’re renaming it because some of the people in charge are not quite up with what is Keswick teaching. So they want to drop the name Keswick and all around the world there are campsites that once were known as Keswick campsites, but they’re giving them other names because they’ve lost understanding of what is Keswick teaching or they don’t believe it

[00:06:23] or they’ve got another type. And it may be Christian teaching that they have too, but the Keswick teaching is that not only did Jesus die for you, he rose for you and rose to be your living saviour. We’ve seen some young lives led to the place where they come to that commitment to trust Christ, to believe in Christ. But when you’re involved in a church and you’re involved in the youth work, particularly young adults part of it, which Jesh and Shona have been, and they’re now about to go off to theological studies overseas, part of whether they’ve been a success is like I was talking before, the success is actually any success in spiritual things is what God does in the people. When we see Christian homes, having young people come to get baptised, something’s working.

[00:07:25] And when we see youth groups thriving with people coming and likewise growing in Christ, we’ve got some pretty terrific workers in both the young people’s one, school-aged kids. They’re the younger of the two, the older group who are older than that. They’re called the young adults. And if you come into our church and look around, one of the features of the young adults is just how many of them keep turning up. Some of them are homegrown from our church families and some of them are people who are just turning up and it’s one of the things that I worked out. I don’t know whether I should tell Cameron, but I snuck into the office and looked up some of the communications from the union as to the giving and I realised that a good part of the financial side of this church is being born

[00:08:28] by people who aren’t even yet members. That’s interesting because mostly a church like this is carried by its members and their giving, but we also have, adding to that, we have people who just happen to like coming to our church and have made it their home even though they’re not yet members. If I could get my way, I’d get them to become members because that helps us. But nonetheless, it was fantastic for me to realise that God is at work here. And that youth group and that young adults work. It’s a success. Why so? Because you can see God at work. Can I ask you a question? Is God at work in you? Your Christian success, the evidence thereof, is to see the hand of God at work. I had a couple of passages picked out and I’ll make an attempt because of the time to skip through them, but we’ll go to the first,

[00:09:43] which is in Isaiah. And it’s a bit of a mysterious passage because you’re not sure who’s being talked about by who. And it’s in Isaiah chapter 63 and verses 8 to 12 and we’ll go on through and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Surely they are my people. Now, when you’re someone working in a church, like any of us are in the leadership of this church, we’ve got to be careful not to say that they’re our people. The person who’s talking and says the word my, and if you look through, there’s a my, my, my, and a me, and a me, you know, all the way through. That first person is God. Surely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely. He’s got confidence in his people. And he became their saviour, that he is God, or Jesus. In all their affliction, he was afflicted. You take that two ways

[00:10:50] because on the cross he bore their sins. But in his heart, he along with them bears their afflictions. And the angel of his presence, which of course is Jesus, that’s a reference to the Old Testament time when Jesus was not present bodily. It was a Christophany, you call it. The fanny part means appearance, but the appearance of Christ in the Old Testament in a not a bodily form is called a Christophany. And the angel of his presence, the word an angel is a representative of God, but not a physical presence. An angel of his presence saved them. And his love and his pity, he redeemed them. That’s his converting them in the first place or owning them in the case of the Old Testament, owning them as a nation it is. He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old. Now this is a time in Isaiah’s writing

[00:11:52] where the reflection is happening about the earlier days that Moses represented in bringing him out of Egypt to the place of bondage. And that’s how they were in the old covenant time and where Moses was a success in his leading them out of the land of bondage but also his being the one that was a conduit of the old commandments’ laws. That’s the ten commandments. And down from the mountain where he got them from God two tablets of stone and brought them down to the people and had to set up the Jewish religion. They become the people of God by that old covenant being given to them and they accept it and God owns them. Now God is speaking about them in the earlier days, the days of old, and being led by Moses and his people, Moses with his people. Where is he who brought them up out of the sea?

[00:12:51] Who’s the he? It’s actually God. And the thing about the success of Moses, the beginning was that he was the one under whom God did a mighty work to make them his people and set them up in the Old Covenant, which made them Jews. You had to be a Jew to be under the Old Covenant. You didn’t have to be born a Jew, but you could come with one. And actually they had baptism in the Jewish age. But it was proselyte baptism. If someone was deciding to become a part of the Jewish nation, it involved a baptismal ceremony. We’re not in the Old Covenant anymore, and God’s people is the church. God’s people are all those that have come to Christ. And baptism is used for people of outward signification that someone’s become a part of the body of Christ. That’s the church.

[00:13:44] We’ve witnessed four this morning going through it. And that’s why there’s a change from the Old Testament to the New Testament. But in the olden days, they remember when Moses was very successful in leading the people, when they became under his lead the people of God. Isn’t that a fantastic thing? Where is he, the he is God, who brought them up out of the sea? And that’s a fantastic passage. I’ll go to the next one. I won’t keep reading from Isaiah. If you get home and read Isaiah 63, it’s fantastic. Excuse me. But the second passage to look at is in the New Covenant time of the New Testament, and that passage that tells us not only about how we get to belong to God and get baptised as a signal that we’re his, but also his encouragement to not just stay static, but to learn to walk more closely with him.

[00:14:48] So Galatians 5 is the passage. Now, the issue of freedom was that along with the Old Covenant and the laws was a certain amount of keep the law or you’re out, a certain amount of legalism by people who says, well, I’ll do the prescription of the law and then I’m good. But God had a better step to take his people through, and it’s under the New Covenant. And the New Covenant is introduced by Jesus and the Gospel about Jesus and the formal introduction of the New Covenant is on the day of Pentecost, where Peter finished his sermon and said, when people asked him, men and brethren, what shall we do? And he said, repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, because picture your forgiveness in baptism. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,

[00:15:46] because along with not only the forgiveness and getting into the Covenant, there is this permanent reception of the Holy Spirit, not that he was missing from the work of the Old Testament, but the storyline of Saul, which I won’t go into today, but he lost the presence of the Holy Spirit. David got frightened that maybe he would too because of his sin, which is why Psalm 51, he says, take not your Holy Spirit from me, he prays to God. But in the New Covenant, God promises he’s never going to take his Spirit from you. It’s a permanent gift. Repent of your sins, put your trust in Jesus, confess it, and baptism is what the normal thing is to do, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And the New Testament teaches that that reception is permanent. I’m going to maybe tonight

[00:16:37] use another storyline from the New Testament about someone who failed in the New Testament era, but it’s to point out by their experience that they didn’t, like Saul, get kicked right out of the Covenant. They did have another punishment that I’ll talk about tonight. But here it is. God is saying, but do not use your freedom from the possibility of breaking the laws and getting the boot. But our freedom from not being under any legalism or anything as an opportunity for the flesh. And he brings up the issue of walking after the Spirit or walking after the flesh, and because until we get to glory, until we get to heaven, we’re not going to have the total application of our salvation, and we still have the problem of human nature that’s got a sinful little link. It’s called the flesh.

[00:17:32] but through love serve one another for the work the whole Lord has fulfilled in one word you shall love your neighbour as yourself but if you bite and devour one another watch out that you’re not consumed by one another and then he goes on to say but I say walk by the spirit and you’ll not gratify the desires of the flesh and that which God offers to help us go on as a Christian that he offers to help us to go deeper as a Christian and to somehow get into a winning position of this struggle we constantly have of the Spirit against the flesh is to walk after the Spirit. As I’ve told you before a number of times, J.I. Packer reworded this little spot and he made it, it’s in the verses coming up, keep in step with the Spirit. Well, that’s what you do when you’re walking. Have you ever tried walking with someone

[00:18:27] who takes two bigger steps? Maybe some of my kids have when they’re little and so I have to take littler steps. But when you really want to walk with someone, you want to get your steps going together. Well, that’s what we’re meant to do with the Holy Spirit. But I say walk by the Spirit and you’ll not gratify the desires of the flesh. If we could have the next little part come up if you can. It’s in little writing and I’ll have to squint the bit that’s there. Oh, you’ve done it. Thank you. Thank you. I was being slow. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. You don’t have a choice. In going on for Christ, there are two strong currents. One’s going to sweep you along and make a wreck. It’s called the flesh. The other one is the Holy Spirit,

[00:19:29] whom you have received and who dwells within you and is not going to leave, even if you’re a bad sinner and gets back to cranky old ways. Yes, I want to tell you, God committed himself to you because Christ died for your sins. Your sins have been dealt with and he won’t take your spirit from you. But if you let that Spirit control you, he will help you with the struggle against the flesh. Now, if you’re led by the Spirit, you’re not under the law, so it’s not a legalistic thing. But now the works of the flesh are clear, evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like that. And I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

[00:20:33] You won’t get a part in what God’s doing. I’ve been talking about what’s the proof that God is with you is when he does things. That’s the kingdom of God. I tell you, there’s nothing more exciting that when you suddenly realise that all around you something’s been moving and happening and something’s happened that is the hand of God. And you just have to praise him. It wasn’t that you did it. You just happened to join in the act. That’s the Christian life. Can I ask you, have you joined in the act? Are you in the business of being walking step by step with the Holy Spirit? It’s not something that you get going and then it’s automatic so you might as well relax and never do another wrong thing. No. You’ll always have the flesh and the spirit to contend with. And you need to stay humble

[00:21:26] and know that the work that happens through you is God’s work. He’s the one who’s being the success. And that’s why poor old Moses didn’t end up totally a success because when he whacked the rock with his stick instead of the Lord told him not to hit it the second time I had to go and talk to the rock. That’s a beautiful picture of what we do. If you’re having trouble with the flesh go and talk to Jesus. He’s the rock. Say to him, Jesus, I keep messing up. But you can. Don’t get into a pessimistic stage where you say, I can never do this. I can never be a Christian. You’re right. You can’t on your own because of the flesh. But Jesus can. And he’s done it once. And he can do it again in you. And if you’ve got a problem and you’re here this morning and there’s something that’s caused you to be rather defeated

[00:22:25] and pessimistic about this whole Christian walk business, I want to tell you God’s expecting you to end up with that attitude. He knew you were that way all the time because Jesus is the only one who ever has successfully lived the Christian life and Jesus is the one that you need to call in to do for you what he alone can do. And when you put your trust over on him, Lord, I can’t, but you can. Will you help me? He’ll help you. He’ll help you make progress. He’ll show you that he is able to make a Christian life out of you. I don’t know whether there’s not somebody here that God has brought that he wanted me to tell you that he can make you into a good Christian. He can be the difference but you’ve got to give it over to him. Don’t try and live for you or by your strength. Don’t be a silly person.

[00:23:35] Sometimes clever people are like this that they say, I’ve got a real personality. I’m going to be a great Christian. They’re in for a big flop. Apostle Paul being one. And nearly most of the people I’ve ever heard testament and they’re people I’ve been respecting because they’ve been doing things for Jesus. And it wasn’t that they learned how to be a successful Christian. It’s people who learn that there’s only one person who makes a success of Christianity and it’s Jesus. And he’s wanting to be your success. But you’ve got to learn to walk in step with the Spirit. Verse 25, if we live by the Spirit, then also we’ll keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, entering one another. Let’s give over to the Spirit and walk with him and let Jesus have a success in us. I want to pray.

[00:24:40] Lord, I pray for whoever is that person or people that you’ve got here to talk to their hearts about letting Jesus take over everything by letting Jesus be their reason for optimism and hope that he can make their lives one that radiate him. Lord, we love when you have your successes and we want you to have some more. Please do, in Jesus’ name. Amen.