“That We Might Have Hope” (Rom. 15:4)
Exodus Chapters Three And Four
Are You Prepared To Lead?
Teachers are preparers. We prepare notes, lesson plans, units, field trips, and so on. But most importantly we prepare students. What do we prepare our students for? Hopefully it’s not for our notes, lesson plans, units, and field trips! Nor should we just prepare them for a rewarding and fulfilling life here on earth. We should be leading the little ones entrusted into our care to their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Are you prepared to lead? Please review with me the extraordinary life of Moses. This is a life so wonderful and moving, so full of God’s power and grace that it could easily be your life or mine!
Moses was born into adversity. His very life was sought from the womb. Yet God’s grace abounded. Not only was the baby’s life spared by the faithfulness of his parents and the pity of Pharaoh’s daughter, but the Lord also arranged for his own mother to be allowed to raise the infant. How that mother must have prepared that boy knowing that she had only a few short years of grace until he would be whisked away into the halls of Pharaoh! During his formative years, Moses was able to sit at his parents’ feet and hear the mighty deeds of creation and preservation performed by his God. What a blessed preparation for Moses as a future leader of God’s people!
What about you? Weren’t you brought to your Savior-God by a loving family? Being raised in a Christian home is so basic to raising Christians that it is often an overlooked blessing. Most of us were probably brought to the Lord by the washing of Holy Baptism in our infancy. And then, how your family continued to prepare you! How fondly do you remember your Sunday school lessons and teachers, family devotions and Vacation Bible Schools? What cherished memories do you have of seemingly countless Christmas services and confirmation classes, church picnics, and clean-up days? The Lord was preparing you through those individuals for a time of His choosing.
The Lord Calls
We move on. So did Moses. Being raised as a royal prince, Moses was also prepared like one. Scripture tells us Moses was “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” Most likely being educated at the famous university of Heliopolis would have included geometry, astronomy, music, painting, architecture, medicine, chemistry, history, poetry, law, and statecraft. Since Egyptian knowledge was far in advance to any other civilization of the time, it is hard to imagine what a comparable education would be today. The Lord was seeing to it that Moses was being prepared to lead.
So we also had to advance our “secular” education if we were to be well-rounded leaders of the churches’ youth. Some of us may have gone to public colleges or universities to glean what wisdom we could from their halls of learning. But even our ILC must teach more than just theological courses, not only to fulfill the law of the land, but also to provide the Lord with well-rounded teachers able to prepare our children to take their place in the subduing of the earth and the witnessing to its inhabitants.
Moses had his Christian upbringing and his university degree in hand so he must have been ready to lead now, right? He thought so. Moses did leave the comfort, prestige, power, and wealth of the palace in order to suffer with his fellow Jews. He felt now was the time for the Jews to be released from their bondage and he would be their leader. He was right and wrong. He was God’s choice; it was not God’s time. Moses had everything but the call. That didn’t come until after another 40 years of waiting on the Lord.
We have the Christian upbringing. We have degrees from Immanuel Lutheran College and/or other institutions. But more than that, we also have the confidence that the Lord Himself has placed us in our calling. “And He (Jesus) Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers… (Eph. 4:11).
— Teacher David Bernthal
(Teacher Bernthal tells us that this offering in our Exodus studies was from the first section of a three-part devotion he prepared for the CLC Teachers’ Conference. We have invited him to send along also parts two and three. – Ed.)