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EX12 - The Death of Moses · Grace Longmont

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: Well, good morning, Brees.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: One more.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_03: Claptnam.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_03: We're gonna talk about death.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: We can't talk about death.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_03: This is church.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_03: Be American.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_03: Push it away.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_03: Sanitize it.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_03: Don't talk about it.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_03: The Bible doesn't push it away.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: Not at all.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: Exodus is about three things.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_03: What are they?
• 0:50
  unknown: Shepherd.
• 0:51
  unknown: Salvation.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_03: Beautiful.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_03: Whose story is it?
• 0:55
  unknown: Ours.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_03: Well, their shepherd's about to die.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_03: Death is their story.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_03: Every genealogy in the Pentateuch, it's what we call the first five books of the Bible.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_03: Every genealogy reminds us everyone dies.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_03: So-and-so was born, he lived this many years, he had this many kids, and he died.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_03: Why?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_03: Adam, Eden, same old curse.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_03: It's our story.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_03: Because it's coming.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_03: Our graduation speaker, when Jackie and I graduated from Geneva, a guy named Walt Mueller, and he got up and said, whether you know it or not, every single person in this room one day is going to breathe their last breath and die.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: It was the best graduation speech I'd ever heard in my life.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_03: And it's his story.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_03: And to be dying.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_03: And whether or not you know it or like it, it's November.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_03: Which means Christmas is coming.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_03: No! You're not allowed to talk about Christmas till the day after Thanksgiving.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_03: I don't add laws to the Bible, you Pharisee.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_03: You shouldn't either.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_03: So with Christmas comes my annual meditation on death, which I call reading a Christmas carol.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's one of my favorite stories ever.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: Dave Turpening and I were talking about after the last service.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: It's one of his favorite stories ever, if you know Dave.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_03: And it's the best depiction ever about this tension that we feel between what one of my favorite authors, a guy named David Brooks, calls resume virtues and eulogy virtues.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_03: Resume virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_03: Things that look good on your resume.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_03: Your timeliness, your capabilities, your devotion to the company, your ability to win.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_03: Being competitive, being driven, sacrificing relationships for the bottom line.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not that those things don't matter.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_03: But Brooks says, what matters is if whether or not you're doing those at the expense of eulogy virtues.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_03: And a eulogy virtue is what you want said about you at your funeral.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_03: Think about it this way.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_03: If I was doing your funeral and said they had perfect attendance, they satisfied the bottom line needs of our corporation.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_03: They were an effective communicator, proficient in Microsoft Office.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_03: But eulogy virtues, those tend to be about the nature of your relationships.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_03: Were you bold?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_03: Were you loving?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_03: Were you compassionate?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_03: Did you care about people?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_03: Did you listen to people?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_03: And Brooks admits, are these the virtues I think about the most?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_03: If a resume virtue is about doing good, a eulogy virtue is about being good.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_03: Brooks says, a resume virtue's motto is success.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_03: Whereas a eulogy virtue's motto is love, redemption, and reunion.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_03: He says these virtues operate by two different ways of thinking.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_03: Resume logic is economic.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_03: This input leads to this output.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_03: This risk leads to this reward.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_03: Whereas a eulogy logic is moral.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: And it tends to be inverted.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_03: This is where Brooks kind of tips that he's a Christian.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_03: He says, eulogy logic says you have to give to receive.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_03: You have to surrender to something outside yourself to gain strength within yourself.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_03: You have to conquer the desire to get what you want.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_03: In order to fulfill yourself, you have to forget yourself.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_03: In order to find yourself, you have to lose yourself.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_03: And Brooks continues: we happen to live in a society that favors the resume virtue and often neglects the eulogy virtue.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_03: And the problem is that turns you into a shrewd animal, who treats life as a game, and you become a cold, calculating creature.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_03: Scrooge.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: Who slips into a sort of mediocrity where you realize there's a difference between your desired self and your actual self.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_03: You're not earning the sort of eulogy you want, you hope someone will give it to you.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_03: And so you don't have depth of conviction.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_03: You're not emotionally aware, and you don't have time to commit to tasks that would take more than a lifetime to commit.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_03: So how do we evaluate Moses' life?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_03: Through his resume virtues.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_03: Initially, he's a failure and a murderer.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_03: And nobody listens to him.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_03: He's scared to serve.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_03: As a leader, he's exasperated.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_03: As a prophet, he can't talk.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_03: He didn't even make it to the promised land.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_03: How does God view Moses as he lays dying?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_03: Go to Deuteronomy 34.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_03: We're going to read the whole chapter.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_03: It's just 12 verses.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_03: But when you get there in your Bible or on your phone, feel free to stand.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_03: And let's see how God evaluates the life and the death of Israel's great shepherd.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_03: This is the word of the Lord.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Piscah, which is opposite Jericho.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: And the Lord showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Mamnash, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, the Negev and the plain, that is the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, as far as Oar.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_03: And the Lord said to him, This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_03: I will give it to your offspring.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_03: I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_03: So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab according to the word of the Lord, and he buried him in the valley of the land of Moab opposite Beth Peor.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_03: But no one knows the place of his burial to this day.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_03: Moses was 120 years old when he died.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_03: His eye was undimmed and his vigor unabated.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_03: And the people of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_03: Then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_03: God show us in life and in death the goodness of your servant, that we might live well and die beautifully.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_03: In Jesus' name.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_03: Amen.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_03: You can have a seat.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_03: This seems really cruel.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: That God would just get him this close.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_03: And then he would die there.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: It is really cruel if you don't realize that Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy are books about sight.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_03: God has always led Moses by seeing.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_03: Every time, beholding, looking, viewing, observing.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_03: A burning bush that says, You'll remember who I am when you come back here and you see your people worship.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_03: See what I'm going to do to the Egyptians.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_03: Moses, look out at the sea.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_03: Moses, you see that rock over there?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_03: So of course, it makes sense.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_03: The second part of verse one, that the Lord showed him all the land.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_03: Shows him the promised land.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_03: It's their story.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_03: So he mentions again, this is a land I swore to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_03: This is their promised land, Moses.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_03: I'm going to show it to you.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_03: You see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_03: Why does this matter?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_03: Well, let me show you a picture.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_03: Today you can cheat.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_03: Let's talk about where we've been.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_03: Exodus begins with Moses and God's people enslaved in bondage, in chains, under an evil king, a baby killer who hates him.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_03: So much so that God's anger, God's wrath, is aligned with Moses' anger, so that he says, I'm coming after the gods of Egypt, and you're coming with me.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_03: But in order to do that, Moses needs to mediate.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_03: And so he brings Aaron, God provides, a brother, to mediate between God and man, and also to set a way that we would relate to each other.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_03: Then, at Passover, Moses leads people to be saved by the blood of the Lamb and then to walk through the waters of the Red Sea into that long, boring line we call the wilderness.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_03: Where Moses mediates salvation through bread.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_03: He splits a rock that living water would pour out.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_03: That's the little crack in the mountain.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_03: Then he stands from the mountaintop and delivers the law.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: And then saves all Israel through the provision of a snake on a pole.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_03: All this looking ahead to the promised land.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_03: And if you're Moses, you die right before that tree.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_03: He sees it.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_03: Every covenant promises three things: God's presence, that he'll be with them, that God will provide a people, a peculiar people, a grumbly people, but a people, and paradise, a home, rest, a promised land.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_03: And if you forget that that tree is there at the end, then every day your eyes are set on this dusty, nasty, rocky ground, and all the grumbly moany people, moany people all around you, complainers.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_03: Think of how many times God has to lift Moses' spirit.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_03: And every time he does it, he lifts Moses' eyes.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_03: Take the slide down.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_03: So where are you looking?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_03: What catches your attention?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_03: Where are your eyes set?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_03: We've had numerous discussions with the elders over the past few months, and some with the full-time staff.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_03: And we keep coming across these two things, these two answers we keep getting from seemingly everyone.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: How are you?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_03: I'm busy and I'm tired.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_03: Why?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_03: Filling up schedules, proving that our existence is important to one another, doing all these things so that we stand out, or busying yourself by making your kids do all these things so that they stand out, so that you stand out.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_03: Here's the thing.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_03: If everyone is so constantly busy and tired to try to stand out, and we're all doing the same thing, then if you really want to stand out, stop.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_03: And listen, this is not an indictment to you from your friendly staff.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: Because the staff and the elders say the same thing.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: How are you?
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: Busy.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: Tired.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: That wasn't even answered to the question.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: Busy.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: Are you okay?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: Tired.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's just.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_03: So we talked at the last full-time staff meeting and just said, okay, busyness and fatigue.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_03: Those are not the disease.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_03: Those are a symptom.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_03: What are they a symptom of?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_03: And we talked about it for a long time.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_03: Until we realized, friends who I love, it's a symptom of disbelieving the gospel.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_03: We talk about being saved by the blood of the Lamb alone.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_03: The phrase we use for that is justification by faith alone.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_03: That you are justified.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_03: Already, innocent, holy, at the point of your salvation.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_03: So if we if we looked at that drawing and didn't actually believe that we were saved fully by the blood of the Lamb, then everything after that drawing, everything after Passover, the baptism, the communion, the struggle in the wilderness, trying to live according to the law, if you do not fully believe you are saved only by the blood of Jesus, everything after that is performative.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_03: Every part of it.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_03: So if we don't believe we're justified by faith alone, if we don't believe we're saved by the blood of the Lamb alone, then we will do everything we can to justify ourselves to other people.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_03: How do we do that?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm busy.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm tired.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what I had to do this week?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, do you know what I had to do this week?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you wouldn't know how busy I am because you're not married.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_03: You don't have kids.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_03: So if we don't believe we're justified, we do everything we can to demand justification from our peers.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_03: And they can't give it to you, and they don't want to give it to you because they're trying to do the same thing.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_03: On the other hand, if I know that based on the blood of Christ alone, based on the blood of the Lamb alone, that that promised land is guaranteed to me, it's sealed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_03: It's mine, it's ours, it's never going to get taken away, then everything else in response to that salvation is just a response to grace and goodness.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_03: Doesn't mean you can't do things.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_03: Doesn't mean you can't do many things.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_03: You can have a full life with interesting opportunities, but you don't have to do it to prove anything to anyone.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_03: Which gives you the ability to say no to something fleeting.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_03: So that you can say yes to something eternal.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_03: Pastor John said we shouldn't be so busy anymore.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_03: So we don't have to go to church on Sunday anymore.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_03: No, that's a commandment, and it's a big one.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_03: So how do we lift our eyes?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_03: As Moses did, to a promised land that's ready for us to inherit.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_03: One thing is stop it with the resume virtues.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_03: Here lies John Gardiner.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_03: He was busy and tired.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_03: Here lies John Gardiner.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_03: High school GPA 3.8.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_03: Grad school three point two.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_03: Doctorate 4.0.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_03: SAT twelve fifteen, Magna Magna Summa, took most vacation days.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_03: I love that God gives an honest account of Moses' life, that he was exasperated, that he was tired, that his head was down and his eyes were down and his soul was downcast.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_03: But is that all he was to God?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_03: Just this perpetual recovery project?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_03: Is this burden?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_03: Go to Exodus thirty-three, verse eleven.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_03: Cause this matters.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_03: Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: Here lies Moses.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: He was friends with God.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_03: Back in Deuteronomy 34, verse 5.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_03: It says, So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab according to the word of the Lord, and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth Peor, but no one knows the place of his burial to this day.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_03: One of my favorite four-word combos in the whole Bible.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_03: And he buried him.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_03: There's only two people in this account.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_03: In the ancient Near East, burial was reserved for those who were closest to the departed.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_03: If you were to let your friends bury you instead of your son or your wife, or in a scary situation, your own parents.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_03: Because burial is a right only for those who were closest to the person who departed.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_03: And the only other person in this text is God.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_03: Somebody's got it.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_03: The highest honor Moses can receive is not to enter the promised land.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_03: It's to be buried by his closest friend.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_03: You talk to him as a friend?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_03: Do you think of him as a friend?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_03: Or is he so holy that he's just king and so distant that he has no time for you?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_03: He's dealing with things like wars and famines and plagues.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_03: Moses talked to him face to face as one talks to a friend.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_03: Which is what leads to this.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_03: Verse 7.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_03: Moses was 120 years old when he died.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_03: His eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_03: What does that mean?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_03: He wasn't busy.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_03: And he wasn't tired.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_03: His eye was undimmed.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_03: He had seen incredible things.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_03: And he dies looking at the promised land.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: And his vigor was unabated.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_03: He's a hundred and twenty.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_03: And we've seen Moses be exasperated.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_03: We've seen him be tired.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_03: We've seen Jethro confront him and be like, Why are you working so hard?
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_03: I'm busy.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_03: I'm tired.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_03: And Jethro says, Stop.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: So the last thing he sees is the promised land.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_03: And if Deuteronomy's the end, that's sad.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's not the end.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_03: Because what's the first thing Moses sees when he wakes back up?
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_03: His closest friend.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_03: In a real promised land.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_03: When my grandfather died, we were all around his bed.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_03: And he was in pain.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: My grandma was holding his one hand.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_03: My Aunt Amy, his oldest daughter, was holding the other one.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_03: You're standing in a circle.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_03: We were singing Amazing Grace.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_03: And he didn't get to the last verse.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_03: Here.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_03: I suspect I know the first thing my grandfather saw.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_03: And the first thing my grandfather heard.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_03: When his eyes were opened again.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_03: Left a legacy for us.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_03: What a way to go.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_03: Look at the legacy Moses leaves in verse 8.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_03: The people of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_03: Then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_03: And Joshua, the son of Nun, was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_03: So the people of Israel obeyed him and did as the Lord had commanded Moses.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_03: Eulogy virtues tend not to be as much about us as others.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_03: A resume virtue asks, what will this cost the company?
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_03: A eulogy virtue asks, Who's gonna miss you?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: Who are you training?
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Who are you discipling?
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_03: Is there some Joshua waiting in the wings for your encouragement and your skills and your gifts?
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_03: Someone that you expect to be in the great cloud of witnesses for.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_03: How do you know?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_03: He went further up the mountain.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_03: That's for pastors.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_03: Second Corinthians 3.18.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_03: We all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_03: For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_03: That means you have as much, if not more, access to the friendship in the face of God than Moses did.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_03: Do you avail yourself of that?
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_03: Why?
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_03: Busy.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_03: What else?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_03: Tired.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_03: And this may be the best eulogy ever.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_03: Verse eleven.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_03: None like him.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_03: For all the signs of the one and wonders that the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, and for all the mighty power and all the great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_03: That's the end of the Pentateuch.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know who's gonna realize he's gone?
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_03: Egypt.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_03: But you do know, do you know who?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_03: Because of the life of Moses and because of his mediation, who gets welcomed eventually into the family of God?
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_03: Who gets access to the communion table?
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_03: Who gets baptized?
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_03: Whole bunch of Egyptians.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: Why Moses?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_03: Why do we spend time in Exodus?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_03: Why do we need this guy?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_03: Why do we need Moses?
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_03: Well, we need a boy who's born in bondage to an evil king, a baby killer, who would escape to Egypt and then escape from Egypt.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_03: A young man whose anger would align with the fathers over the contempt that his oppressors have over the people that he loves.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_03: We need somebody who would defy the gods of the enemies, who stand firm against a mocking pantheon of lousy pretenders to God's throne.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_03: We need someone who would mediate for us compassionately and with strength.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_03: We need somebody who would show us that the way to be saved is by the blood of a lamb, someone who would lead us through the waters into the wilderness.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_03: Somebody who would mediate our hunger with bread, who would show us the way to streams of living water, who would give us a law written on our hearts, who would save us from the venomous bite of a snake.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_03: By raising up our salvation on a stick.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_03: And who, at the cost of his own life, would open the promised land for us.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_03: It's his story.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_03: We need Moses because Moses sets forward the way for how a Messiah is going to be.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_03: And we need Moses because we really, really, really need Jesus.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_03: So sometimes I have ideas about what would be a great last thing to see before I die.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_03: But all of that kind of fades when I think about the first thing I want to see when my eyes open again.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I want to see a great cloud of witnesses.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_03: I want to see my grandparents.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_03: I want to see my uncle.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_03: I want to see Jack Pewterbaugh, who was the guy that mentored me when I was a six-year-old, about to get baptized.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_03: An old tatted up ex-Navy cook who was maybe four feet tall.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_03: But you didn't threaten him.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_03: I can't wait to see Jack again.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_03: And say, hey, that baptism, it worked.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_03: I wouldn't mind if St.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_03: Augustine was there.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_03: I'd kind of like to see Moses, but that feels a little greedy.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_03: I want to see you.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_03: Sooner or later, doesn't matter to me.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_03: Whether I'm in the cloud of witnesses or you are, I don't care.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_03: I want to see my old youth group kids.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_03: I want to see my current youth group kids.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_03: I want to be there when they show up.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_03: And yes, obviously, I want to see Jackie.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I even want to see my dog.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_03: And she'll be there.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_03: I'm right.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_03: Fight me.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_03: But with all the affection in my heart, I don't want to see any of them first.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_03: I want to see my friend.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_03: And fall into his arms and cry the last pained tears I will ever cry.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_03: And just rest in the company of my best friend.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_03: Or I could forget about that and just bury my head in my schedule and keep trying to impress people and just content myself with being perpetually busy and tired.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_03: And wouldn't that be a tragedy?
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_03: Remind us that as you say in your word to comfort your people and cry unto them that their warfare is accomplished and their iniquity is pardoned.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_03: Free us from this endless, stupid cycle of justifying ourselves by being busy and tired.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_03: And set our eyes on the promised land that you're preparing for us right now.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_03: That we would see you there, face to face.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.