Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How Good Are You? | Torah | Numbers 20:1-13

Episode Date: September 6, 2022

Is your success, money or popularity a result of your goodness? Do other people need Jesus’s forgiveness more than you do? How do you compare to other people? In today’s episode, Tanya looks at Numbers 20:1-13 to discuss self-righteousness. (If you think you don’t need to listen to this episode, that probably means you do.) Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Numbers 20:1-13

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmuth. There's a pizza place in our town, Columbia, Missouri, and it's called Shakespeare's. And maybe you've heard of it. It actually made it on the Today Show one time. It was one of those iconic college town places you have to visit episodes. And Shakespeare's is cool for lots of reasons.

They have super thick pepperoni's. Their employees have a cool vibe, and they give out free pizza dough. My kids were really little when we moved back here, and they loved to go to Shakespeare's. And there was this little step for the kids to climb up on to watch the doughmakers in action. And then when they had a spare minute, the workers making the pizza would throw a ball of pizza dough over to the kids who would eat it or throw it or play with it like Play-Doh and drop it on the floor and still eat it. Well, I can remember when Aubrey, our oldest daughter, came back to the table with her ball of dough and she said, I got a ball of dough because I asked nicely. Now what I think she was trying to say is my brothers and sisters did not ask nicely.

In fact, mom and dad, if you were paying attention, you would probably see how embarrassing and misbehaved they are. But I, on the other hand, asked nicely, and that's why I got this ball of pizza dough. Truth. Shakespeare's gives dough to any kid, regardless of how polite or obnoxious they are. Also truth. There's a good chance Aubrey was the only one who asked nicely. But don't we do this with God sometimes?

like I have this good thing in my life because I ask nicely. I have good kids because I prayed the right way and parented the right way. I have this good job because I am a good person. I can tithe because I am resourceful and good with my money. Now, it's important to work on good parenting and good money skills, but we're missing the point about where our goodness comes from and what it really means when we're focused on our goodness. Now Moses missed the point too.

And it was such a big point. It actually kept him out of the promised land. So let me tell you the story. Now here they are, the Israelites still in the wilderness. But now in Numbers 20, Miriam is dead. So Moses had to bury his sister and fellow leader. And then once again, the people needed water. So there must have been little time to mourn and grieve before they started complaining again

about how there is no water and no food here in the wilderness. and how Egypt and slavery were so much better. They had something called rosy retrospection, when you remember something better than it actually was. So Moses and Aaron hear the complaints again. And verse 6 says, They went before the Lord and fell on their faces. And then the glory of the Lord appeared to them,

and God spoke to Moses. And God had a plan. He told Moses to take the staff and assemble the congregation and go to the rock and tell it before their eyes. eyes to yield its water. Now this was a special rock, and this wasn't a first for Moses. Earlier, God told Moses to take his staff and go to the rock at Horib, where the Lord himself would be on the rock, and Moses would strike it and water would come out of it. And it did. So as Moses got up from the ground, he would know that God himself was with him, and God

himself was going to provide the water the people needed once again. But, so he said, Something happened from the time between when Moses got up from his prayer and when he assembled the people before the rock. Now, we can conjecture probably from our own personal experiences, but numbers doesn't tell us. So instead, we'll look at what Moses did and how God responded. Verse 10. Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and Moses said to them, Here now, you rebels, shall we bring water for you out of this rock?

and Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice and water came out abundantly. This reminds me of the double tap. Like when the link isn't opening on your phone, so you double tap impatiently to get it to hurry up because you can't wait two seconds. But really, what did Moses do? Well, first he judged them. He called them rebels. Maybe they were. But when God told them to assemble the people, he didn't say.

And also make sure you tell them they, are rebels. And Moses asked them, shall we bring you water out of this rock? And he double-tapped. He lifted up his hand and he tapped the rock twice when God told him just to tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. Now while God's instruction for Moses focused on the rock and intended to draw everyone's eyes to the rock, Moses drew the attention to the people and to himself. And they were in the wrong and he was in the right. Now this might seem like a minor indiscretion, and the Lord did provide the water, and scripture says the people and their livestock drank abundantly. But this wasn't about forgetting the words or goofing up. It was about Moses' heart.

See, when the Bible talks about people drinking water and drinking abundantly, it's pointing to the spiritual rock of Christ, from whom living water flows, the water of life, and it's both literal and symbolic. The people drink literal water in Exodus that sustained them in the wilderness. And God's people drink water of life, which sustains and refreshes and empowers us to live the life he calls us to live. Now Moses forgot that he needed water too. He needed to drink from this water of life, just as much as the grumbling people. Moses' heart was no cleaner than their heart, apart from God's saving mercy in his life. Now, while the people were drinking, the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel,

you won't be the ones bringing them into the promised land. So why? Why is God so severe with Moses? And aren't we thankful he doesn't respond that way to us today? Well, these are questions we ask. So let's be honest about them. First, God is severe. God is His. God is a jealous God. He is a just God. He is holy. He does not tolerate sin and disobedience is sin. And he is the same God today that he was in the Old Testament. God does not change. He is always the same yesterday, today, today, and tomorrow. This is why we focus on the rock and not us. It is the rock, Jesus Christ that takes the punishment we deserve. And God sent His Son Jesus to do this for us.

He is so loving. We too are unable to enter the promised land because of our disobedience. But Christ obedience stands in our place and opens the door wide open for us. But this is something we all struggle with. We love to be right. And there's a slippery slope in our hearts that forgets we need the water to. This is where we get the term self-righteous. We start sounding like people who say,

you rebels, do you need me to bring water out of this rock for you? But the rock of Christ makes us righteous, not self-righteous. We're right before God only because Christ is the one who God looks at to see how good we are. If he looked at us and our thoughts and our deeds to determine our standing, we would be at the bottom of the scum pile. He doesn't ask us to focus on this, though, because the Lord knows it would crush us to know the severity of our sin.

Instead, his spirit reveals to us, and we respond in repentance and humility. Now, as people who are following Jesus, we carry a lot of responsibility. We understand how Moses feels. You want people to know Jesus. You want them to make good choices that line up with God's will. You want to fix things that are broken. As we should, as long as we remember how much we need the water to. Are we going to get distracted by what other people are doing?

Or are we going to humbly do what the Lord has put in front of us today? Maybe it's to pray with someone. Maybe it's to listen and support them without pointing out where they made a wrong choice. Yet. Maybe or ever. Maybe it's to love someone's kids instead of telling them how to parent. Maybe it's having a big influence on one person instead of making a big statement on social media. Bring them to the rock and let them see Jesus.

He will give them water just like he gives it to you. Before you forget, sign up for the brand new TMBT newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that will help you beat the midweek slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.