Posts tagged ‘Priesthood’
Sermon Extra – When Our Desires Defy God’s Choices
Our desires don’t always line up with God’s choices. And when there’s a mismatch, conflict—and sometimes catastrophe—is not far off.
This past weekend in worship at Zion, we looked at a story from Numbers 16 about a man named Korah. Korah is a Levite, which means he belongs to the tribe God has chosen to care for the tabernacle—the tent where God dwells among His people. This is no small calling. Korah has been chosen for holy work.
But Korah does not want the holy work God has given him. He wants the holy work God has given to somebody else.
He does not want to serve near the altar of the tabernacle. He wants to stand at the altar. He does not want to assist the priests. He wants to be a priest.
So Korah starts fuming. Then he starts recruiting. He gathers a group of fellow grumblers, and together they bellyache to Moses and Aaron: “You have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the LORD is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the LORD’s assembly?” (Numbers 16:3).
Korah and his crew accuse Moses and Aaron of self-dealing, as though they have maneuvered and manipulated their way into Israel’s best and most powerful positions. But Moses and Aaron have done no such thing. They have simply received what God has given. As God says to Aaron a couple of chapters later: “I am giving you the service of the priesthood as a gift” (Numbers 18:7).
This is what Korah cannot accept. The priesthood is not a prize to be won. It is not a platform to be seized. It is a gift to be received. But Korah does not like God’s gift because Korah does not like God’s choice.
So God answers in judgment: “The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their households, and all those associated with Korah, together with their possessions” (Numbers 16:32).
Korah tries to climb above the place God has given him. Instead, he plunges beneath the ground.
This is what rebellion does. It reaches upward in pride, only to crash downward in death.
In Genesis 4, we read about another conflict between human desire and divine choice. Two brothers, Cain and Abel, each bring an offering to the LORD. God looks with favor on Abel and his offering, but not on Cain and his offering. Hebrews tells us why: “By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did” (Hebrews 11:4). Abel comes in faith. Cain, it seems, comes without it.
Cain is furious. And instead of repenting before God, he butchers his brother.
When God confronts Cain, He describes the crime vividly: “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand” (Genesis 4:10–11).
In Numbers 16, the ground opens its mouth to swallow Korah in judgment. In Genesis 4, the ground opens its mouth to drink in Abel’s blood after Cain’s violence. In both stories, rebellion rattles the earth.
When our desires try to overrule God’s choices, creation itself testifies against us. The ground beneath our feet becomes a preacher. It announces that sin is never merely private, never merely personal, never merely “between me and God.” Sin wounds brothers. Sin fractures communities. Sin groans through creation. Sin digs graves.
Perhaps the earth is sometimes wiser than we are.
But then comes Jesus.
When Jesus breathes His last from the cross, the earth moves again: “The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open” (Matthew 27:51–52).
Once more, creation reacts. Once more, the ground opens. But this time, something different happens.
Matthew recounts that, when Jesus dies, “the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life.” And then, after Jesus’ resurrection, “they came out of the tombs and went into the holy city and appeared to many people” (Matthew 27:52–53).
The earth that once swallowed sinners begins to spit them back.
There is an old word for when our desires conflict with God’s choices: rebellion. Korah rebelled against God. Cain rebelled against God. And we rebel against God.
As we learn from the stories of Korah and Cain, our rebellion opens graves. But as we learn from Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus’ sacrifice empties tombs.
One day, unless Jesus returns first, the earth will open its mouth to receive us, too. The ground will claim what sin has broken.
But it will not keep us.
Because the same Jesus who died and rose will call us from our graves. And when He does, the earth will have to give us back. The ground that swallowed us will surrender us. Death will not get the final word.
Jesus will.
Our rebellion will always be overruled by God’s choice. We cannot grab for ourselves what God has not given. Korah learned that the hard way.
But our rebellion is also redeemed by God’s choice. And for us, God’s choice is life.
And for life, God’s choice is us.
Slow in Anger and Full of Grace
When God appears in a burning bush to Moses and charges him to lead the Israelites out of their slavery in Egypt, Moses is fiercely skeptical of God’s rescue mission. He begins by expressing skepticism that the Israelites he is called to rescue won’t express some sort of skepticism:
What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, “The LORD did not appear to you”? (Exodus 4:1)
God responds by giving Moses the power to perform some miracles to back up his divinely mandated mantle – he can turn his staff into a snake, make his hand leprous and then heal it again, and turn water from the Nile into blood.
But Moses is still not so sure. He is not only skeptical that the Israelites won’t be skeptical; he is also skeptical that he will be able to deliver God’s message:
Pardon Your servant, LORD. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since You have spoken to Your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue. (Exodus 4:10)
God insists that Moses will do just fine. After all, He created Moses’ mouth, and He will speak through Moses’ mouth.
But Moses’ problem, it turns out, is not one of Israelite skepticism or a fear of public speaking. Instead, it is simply an old-fashioned stubborn will:
Pardon Your servant, LORD. Please send someone else. (Exodus 4:13)
Moses simply does not want to be bothered with God’s mission. And God is not happy:
Then the LORD’s anger burned against Moses. (Exodus 4:14)
Usually, when the Lord’s anger burns, He acts accordingly. When the Israelites build a false god in the form of a golden calf, God says to Moses, “Now leave Me alone so that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them” (Exodus 32:10). By the end of the chapter, we read: “The LORD struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made” (Exodus 32:35). When the Israelites grumble against God immediately after He provides them with a superabundance of quail, we see that “while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the LORD burned against the people, and He struck them with a severe plague” (Numbers 11:33).
With the Lord’s anger burning against Moses in Exodus 14, we would expect God to take decisive discipline measures against Moses. What will God do? Strike Moses with a plague? Swallow him up into the earth? Turn the burning bush into a flaming inferno that consumes him?
God does none of these things. Instead:
He said, “What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you. You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him.” (Exodus 4:14-16)
God, instead of destroying Moses because of his lack of confidence in Him, gives Moses a companion in his brother. God’s anger may burn, but so does His grace.
When Moses is up on Mount Sinai meeting with God, God proclaims His character to Moses:
The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. (Exodus 34:6-7)
It turns out that not only is God slow to anger, He is also slow in anger. Yes, sometimes His anger results in disciplinary action. But in Moses’ case in Exodus 4, God’s anger was subsumed by God’s grace. In place of judgment, God gave Moses his brother.
When we sin, God can – and, indeed, does – get angry. But as with Moses, God’s anger is ultimately subsumed by God’s grace. And in place of judgment, God gives us a brother:
Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call Him. A crowd was sitting around Him, and they told Him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for You.” “Who are My mother and My brothers?” He asked. Then He looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!” (Mark 3:31-34)
God is slow in anger – even with us.
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