Moses - God's Fellow Worker Series

Last week we started a study on what the Bible says about work. We noticed that the very first two chapters of the Bible introduces God as a worker. God worked six days creating everything, then God rested on the seventh day setting up a divine pattern for a work week for us. When God made man and woman, He created us in His image and likeness and part of our expression of this image is in our working and resting in the rhythm of the divine example.

But then sin came and the curse that caused frustration in our labors. We heard from Solomon in Ecclesiastes that work is good, but then you die! Vanity! What do you get for all your labors and work? You get to leave it to someone else! And, Solomon says, “Who knows if he will be wise or a fool! Yet someone else gets to have everything you poured your heart and soul into! No fair!”

I don’t know about you, but Solomon seems a bit negative to me. Solomon was the wise king who refused himself no pleasure, but for all his adventures and workings Solomon still had to die; it all had to come to an end. That seems to have bummed Solomon out. Eccls 3:9 What does the worker gain from his toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on men. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. 13 That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. 14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.

God gets to labor and enjoy His works forever! That is partly why men revere God. Solomon’s frustration is that he can’t do that. He doesn’t have that kind of control over things he works for, so he says, “It is all vanity! Striving after the wind!”

Last week that’s sort of where we left off. I told you the story of Sam Walton and closed out with a glance at the work of God through Jesus and our invitation to come be a fellow-worker with God in Christ.

This week let’s take a brief look at one of the great fellow workers with God in the Old Testament. He is not alone, but he did rise high above his peers. Moses. What an amazing leader of God’s people. Moses left the palaces of Egypt, then the world’s most powerful nation, and ran away to the desert region of Midian, in the northwest of present day Saudia Arabia. Hebrews 11 tells us 24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 25 He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. 27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible.

Moses grew up in royalty. He received the best education and had the good life before him.

Stop right there. Think about that. How many people work hard to attain what Moses got by providence? He’s got it all! Moses had at his fingertips everything Solomon had, but Moses gave it all up. Was that a rash decision? What would you say to someone who gave up a high paying position and left home and family behind to do mission work for the Lord in some far away place? Would you want that for your kids?

Moses was born for God’s purpose. He was a Hebrew, not an Egyptian. God had plans for Moses that would make his name stand out throughout human history thereafter. It all involved a work that Moses was called to do. Just imagine if Moses had ignored his Hebrew heritage when he saw that slave driver beating one of the Hebrew slaves. Had Moses not done the hard things, had he not given up his royal life, his life would almost certainly have disappeared from human history. We wouldn’t know anything about Moses today. God would have fulfilled His purposes through someone else, but Moses would have missed the very work that stamped his name into immortality.

Praise God, Moses became a fellow worker with God. In doing so, Moses became more and more like God. Also, in doing so Moses became more and more dependent on God and did more and more difficult things.