“The Spirit Is in Him”

Moses asked God to raise up a leader to follow him; God already had a plan!  He told Moses to “take Joshua,” because “the Spirit is in him.”

Scripture:       

Numbers, chapters 24-27; 1 Corinthians, chapter 13

Numbers 27:12-23 (NLT)

One day the Lord said to Moses, “Climb one of the mountains east of the river, and look out over the land I have given the people of Israel. After you have seen it, you will die like your brother, Aaron, for you both rebelled against my instructions in the wilderness of Zin. When the people of Israel rebelled, you failed to demonstrate my holiness to them at the waters.” (These are the waters of Meribah at Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.)

Then Moses said to the Lord, “O Lord, you are the God who gives breath to all creatures. Please appoint a new man as leader for the community. Give them someone who will guide them wherever they go and will lead them into battle, so the community of the Lord will not be like sheep without a shepherd.”

The Spirit is in him

The Lord replied, “Take Joshua son of Nun, who has the Spirit in him, and lay your hands on him. Present him to Eleazar the priest before the whole community, and publicly commission him to lead the people. Transfer some of your authority to him so the whole community of Israel will obey him. When direction from the Lord is needed, Joshua will stand before Eleazar the priest, who will use the Urim – one of the sacred lots cast before the Lord – to determine his will. This is how Joshua and the rest of the community of Israel will determine everything they should do.”

So Moses did as the Lord commanded. He presented Joshua to Eleazar the priest and the whole community. Moses laid his hands on him and commissioned him to lead the people, just as the Lord had commanded through Moses.

Observations:

Moses is nearing the end of his earthly life.  He has led the Israelites for forty years, and has now brought them to the edge of the Promised Land. God tells him to climb the mountains on the east side of the Jordan, and look out over the Promised Land – because he’s not going in. This was not news to Moses; God had made it clear to him earlier that he would not go in (see Numbers 20:1-13).

So Moses doesn’t argue with God. Instead, he asks God, “Please appoint a new man as leader for the community.”  This demonstrates Moses’ concern for the people. He is no longer concerned about his own fate; he wants them to succeed as they go in to take the land.

“Take Joshua…and publicly commission him”

God’s response isn’t a surprise to us, and I would suggest it wasn’t a surprise to Moses either. Joshua has been his “right hand man” for many years.  He went with Moses up on Mount Sinai (although not all the way into God’s presence; see Exodus 32). He was one of the twelve spies that Moses sent into the Promised Land.  Joshua, along with Caleb, gave a good report and trusted God to give Israel the victory. So Joshua was the obvious choice to succeed Moses – from a human perspective.

But Moses wasn’t interested in the human perspective; he wanted God’s chosen leader to follow him. And God told Moses to take Joshua and commission him (vv 18-19), and God’s reason seems to be that Joshua has the Spirit in him. We recognize that in the New Testament era the presence of the Holy Spirit is the critical qualification for leadership, but here we see that this has always been God’s criterion. The fact that Joshua had the Spirit in him meant that God had already chosen him and equipped him to lead the people.

“Transfer some of your authority to him”

It’s interesting to me that God tells Moses to transfer some of your authority to him (emphasis mine). Why only “some” of Moses’ authority? A few thoughts come to mind.  First, Moses was not dead yet; he was still going to lead the people for a while. (After all, we’re still in the book of Numbers; we have to work through Moses’ farewell address in Deuteronomy before Moses dies!) Joshua was not yet the leader; he would be, but the transition process from Moses to Joshua still needed to unfold.

Second, it’s important for us to recognize that we need to cooperate in God’s transition times.  Moses could have said, “Okay, if Joshua’s the man, then take me now!  Let him lead them from this point on; I’m done!”  But he didn’t do that.  He stayed on the job until God told him he was finished, and he worked with Joshua to help the transition be successful. Moses did everything just the way that God told him to: Moses did as the Lord commanded.

Third, the reason this was important – and is still important today – is that God’s work is bigger than any one person.  This is true no matter how famous, or successful, or established that one person may be.  After all, the success has come from God, not the person. We must never forget that Jesus’ model and qualifications for kingdom leadership involves service and humility.  Humility reminds us that no matter how successful we think we’ve been – or how successful others think we have been – the glory, and the kingdom, belong to God.

Application:

It is very tempting for us to evaluate ourselves and our place in the Kingdom based on what people say, or how they respond to us. If they “like” us, we feel “successful”; if they don’t, we may feel like we’ve failed. This is NOT God’s way of evaluating us! God evaluates us on our obedience and faithfulness, not on our popularity.  As John the Baptist said when the crowds started leaving him and following Jesus, “No one can receive anything unless God gives it from heaven…He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less” (John 3:27, 30, NLT).

We need the Spirit’s presence in us to empower us for whatever ministry God calls us to do. We need to look for the Spirit’s presence in those who seek to lead us. And for those of us in leadership roles, we need to pay attention to God’s leading. Might he be calling us to transfer some of our authority to others?

Prayer:

Father, we thank you for the reminder that your Spirit is at work in us.  You have given us whatever we need to do what you call us to do. Help us to be obedient – whether that means responding to a call to serve, or helping to bring others alongside that your kingdom may advance.  Lead us today in your way.  We pray in the name and Spirit of Jesus.  Amen.