Theme: Making the Teachings of Moses and the prophets come true in these changing

times

Subtheme: Knowing Moses as a great Leader

Exodus 4:1-2
Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The LORD did
not appear to you’?”
2 Then the LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?”

“A staff,” he replied.

Romans 15:4
4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the

endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have
hope.
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Good morning everyone. Since, I am new to the department (ADMIN which I didn’t
realized that I belong to Admin now *smiles*) I was tasked to deliver the message for this
morning. Let us pray: Lord, we thank you for the gift of your Word and as we think on
these things, open our hearts and our minds to hear you. Amen.

Our subtheme this month is “Knowing Moses as a great leader”. Who among you here
are familiar with the story of Moses?

Moses led the people of Israel in their deliverance through the Red Sea and for the next 40 years
in the wilderness.

*Through Moses, God delivered His law to the people and directed Moses to lead the people to
be a holy people. God spent a lot of time getting Moses ready for his commission to lead His
people.

In Exodus 4, we will learn some of the principles of good leadership that Moses exhibited.
And why is it important for us to at least, get a glimpse of those principles? We, at The
College of Maasin, are leaders, aren’t we? We are not just teachers and staffs– we are
leaders – we are leading our students to where? Can we honestly answer that question?
To where.. are we leading our students? Our people in the College of Maasin
community? I hope we all know where we are going.

Now, what made Moses a great leader? And how can we become a great leader too?

Moses has plenty of qualities that made him such a great leader, lets just talk at least 3 of
them and lets see if we have also those qualities.

I. Humility
What is Humility?

Humility involves freedom from arrogance or pride. A humble person does not view others
as inferior to himself. Any imperfect human who is humble should also be modest, that its,
aware of his limitations.

How did Moses display humility?

In Exodus 3:11 Moses protested to God, “Who am I to appear before Pharaoh? Who am
I to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt?”

Moses saw himself as someone not worthy of the task of leading the people out of Egypt. He did not see
himself as worthy to appear before Pharaoh or to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt.

What is the principle that we can surmise in this passage?

Principle: That In His sovereignty, God choses who He choses for leadership. Even if that leader does not seem
capable of the task, God can still chose that leader.

Most often than not, if we will be given a task – we always question the one who assigned such
task to us – “Why me?” “Who am I?” “I don’t think I can do it”. Now, do you think that is the
“humility” our scripture is trying to convey to us? There is a saying that goes “too much humility is
pride”. Do you believe in this?When we asked ourselves Why me? Do u honestly in our heart wants
to know the answer of such question? Or do we ask that question because we are afraid of the
responsibility that goes with whatever task we will be having.

Moses was given the authority to lead God’s people out of Egypt. It is such an overwhelming
authority, isn’t it? Yet, Moses did not let authority to go to his head. Often, when a man receives
a little authority, his humility – or lack thereof – quickly becomes evident. Robert Ingersoll a 19th
century author put it this way: “ Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a
man really is, give him power.” In that sense, Moses set a sterling example of humility. How so?

Moses received great authority, for God commissioned him to lead Israel. Yet, that power never
made Moses proud. Moses did not jealously guard his authority. He rejoice when God allowed
other Israelites to act as prophets alongside him. Wala sya ni ingon, ayaw mong jama jama kay
ako ray gi saligan sa Ginoo. Wa moy angay! Ako ray nakabalo unsa angay buhaton. Are we like
Moses?

What are the lessons for us? We never let power, authority, or natural ability go to our head.
Remember: in order to be useful to God, our humility should always exceed our ability. When we
are truly humble, we will strive to apply the Bible’s wise advice: “Trust in the Lord, with all your heart
and do not lean upon your own understanding. (Proverbs 3:5,6)

Moses’ example also teaches us not to place too much importance on our status or authority. Do
we benefit from imitating Moses’ example of humility? Without question. When we cultivate
genuine humility, we make life easier for the people around us, endearing ourselves to them. Most
importantly, we endear ourselves to God.

ii. Patience
Good leaders need to know how to assess situations. And so So we are, dear faculty and
staff of CM.. We need to know to save our battles for things that really matter. We need
to learn that in dealing with our students. Dli ta dapat ma stress no? Pero dli kalikayan,
ma stress jud ta, why is that? Is it because we care for our students? I hope that is our
answer. Unya ma stress pud ta usahay sa ato colleagues. Ma stress ba mo? Sometimes it
is better to leave in peace rather than cause animosity sa ato kauban sa work. It is not
always easy to see in advance just how God is going to work things out, but in retrospect
, we can see how His providence worked if we will have the patience to trust HIM. As
Moses stressed to the people, mature leadership call on us to “stand still, and see the
salvation of the Lord”. (Exodus 14:13)

iii. Faith in God

What is faith? In my Intro to World Religion class, I let my students differentiate belief vs
faith. Ug moingon tag belief unsa na? Is a mental state or a physical state? Beliefs are
things that we are thoroughly convinced of. It is an opinion or judgment in which a person
is truly persuaded. Because of that, our beliefs can change over time as we gain more
knowledge and experience more things throughout our lives. What about faith? Dli diay
na sila pareha? Faith is belief x action x confidence) faith includes our beliefs, but it is
bigger than that. Faith requires action. If it doesn’t move us to do something or say
something – actually take some kind of action – it is not really faith at all. Until we take
action our “faith” is just a bunch of words.

Now, We are always looking for a sign, arent we? When we are pondering on an
important decision we needed to make, we are desperate for a sign.. Lord taga-e man
sign so il know what to do. Wouldn’t that be awesome? Everytime we are faced with a
decision, we would have a heavenly teleprompter sending us messages across the sky.
It’s interesting that we humans don’t ask for God’s input on every decision, we only seem
to want God’s sign on certain decisions – the “biggies”. Whom should I marry? Or should
I marry? Or should I change jobs? In each instance, we want God to show us a sign. Any
sign will do. Don’t we want to be guided? To be taught God’s ways? To know the path
we are to take? To be shown the right way? We are a people hungry for guidance,. We
long for direction. We are like wanderers in the dessert crying out to God, “ show me the
way! Give me a sign. Just write in the sky, so I can see it. Interestingly, God never wrote
Moses a message in the sky. He never laid a blueprint down. In today’s terms, he did not
send a fax, an email or a text.

Moses had faith in God. Moses centered his life on God’s promises. He had the
opportunity to live a comfortable life amid the luxuries of Egypt, but he gave up that
opportunity, “choosing to be ill-treated with the people of God rather than to have the
temporary enjoyment of sin.” Was that an impulsive decision, one that he would later
regret? No, for the bible says that Moses “continued steadfast as seeing the One who is
invisible. Moses never regretted the choices he made in faith.

Now, whats in it for us? We can imitate Moses by centering our life on God’s promises. For
example, God promises to care for our material needs if we give his worship the top
priority in our life. True, we may find it a challenge to resist the emphasis on material things
that is so prevalent today. But we can be sure that when we do our best to keep our life
simple and focused on our worship, God will provide all that we need. Let our work here
in the College of Maasin be a manifestation of our worship to Him. Let us strive to help our
students and others to grow in faith. Here in CM we have tremendous opportunity to help
our students build their faith. As they grow, they need the vital knowledge that God exists
and that he has given us standards of right and wrong. Now, are we ready to be
commissioned by God? Can we be like Moses? Or can we say we are a Moses in our
own little ways?

In conclusion, lets remember this: Regardless of our condition or circumstance, God is

with us. Our situations don’t change God. He is still with us. The God of the universe walks
with us. He is our companion, our friend. The whole world may walk out on us. But God
never will. We will have His word on that.