Remember those paint by numbers things we all did as kids? You follow the numbers and paint in that small area whatever color is requested. At first it looks crazy...then it all starts to make sense and turn into an impressive picture. Well, the book of Numbers is sort of like that. It contains some boring, historical facts, but when you get farther along and then back off and look at the whole picture, it’s pretty amazing to see the picture take shape.
Over the course of the fall and into December, we will be talking about following God. Our text will be the Exodus narrative and the stories that are found there. We won't stop reading in Exodus, but we'll use it as a way to look at the book of Numbers as God counts those who are found to be his people. Sound boring? Well, I have to admit, the book of Numbers does not usually come to my mind when I think about exciting reading. If so, just wait till we get a few of the numbers painted in and it won’t be.
As Christ-followers, our interest is in following God. We want to be His people, to go where He would have us go, to serve where He would want us to serve. One way to learn about that process is to look at those who have gone before us. If we look at their failures and successes, we can begin to construct a reference database for the future. We can form a lessons learned course for ourselves, a study in best practices. I'm using all this corporate language knowing that most of you sit in jobs all week where such language is the norm. The military in particular loves to construct lessons learned manuals so they can guide future teams who encounter problems and hopefully help them avoid mistakes of the past.
In many ways that’s what we have in Exodus and Numbers: an amazingly detailed history of God's people and their attempts to follow him. It shows the failures and successes of their leaders. It shows the failures and successes of everyday people. It shows those who were counted among the faithful at the end of a very long and trying ordeal.
More than anything, though, it shows the faithfulness of God. And since we have the amazing benefit of being able to read all of it with Christ-colored glasses, we can see God's amazing hand in these stories in a way that the people of Israel could not.
Over the course of the fall and into December, we will be talking about following God. Our text will be the Exodus narrative and the stories that are found there. We won't stop reading in Exodus, but we'll use it as a way to look at the book of Numbers as God counts those who are found to be his people. Sound boring? Well, I have to admit, the book of Numbers does not usually come to my mind when I think about exciting reading. If so, just wait till we get a few of the numbers painted in and it won’t be.
As Christ-followers, our interest is in following God. We want to be His people, to go where He would have us go, to serve where He would want us to serve. One way to learn about that process is to look at those who have gone before us. If we look at their failures and successes, we can begin to construct a reference database for the future. We can form a lessons learned course for ourselves, a study in best practices. I'm using all this corporate language knowing that most of you sit in jobs all week where such language is the norm. The military in particular loves to construct lessons learned manuals so they can guide future teams who encounter problems and hopefully help them avoid mistakes of the past.
In many ways that’s what we have in Exodus and Numbers: an amazingly detailed history of God's people and their attempts to follow him. It shows the failures and successes of their leaders. It shows the failures and successes of everyday people. It shows those who were counted among the faithful at the end of a very long and trying ordeal.
More than anything, though, it shows the faithfulness of God. And since we have the amazing benefit of being able to read all of it with Christ-colored glasses, we can see God's amazing hand in these stories in a way that the people of Israel could not.
Mark
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