Focus Passage: Deuteronomy 33:1-5; 34:1-12
In this final lesson in Deuteronomy, the focus is on the man, Moses. The lesson title is designed to encourage readers to be diligent about building a positive, godly legacy. While this is certainly something to be desired, it is important for us to remember how that really happens.
As we read scripture, we are prone to look at certain Bible characters and think, “I wish I could just be like him/her.” In fact, sermons can often lead us toward such a response. For example, in a sermon on Moses going before Pharoah, listeners might be admonished to “be like Moses: be willing to face those who oppose God; etc.”
The difficulty with such an admonition is twofold. First, Moses was just a man with clay feet like us. He had killed an Egyptian taskmaster; he couldn’t speak well; and he would disobey God, which would prevent Him from entering the Promised Land. Second, such an emphasis makes Moses to be the hero of the story when, in fact, there is only one hero in the story, God Himself. God chose Moses. God overcame Pharaoh. God led His people out of Egypt (though He did it by using Moses).
The point in that story is not “be like Moses” but rather “walk by faith in Moses’ God.” We see this made clear in Hebrews 11. Over and over the writer says “by faith …”: “by faith Abel offered …;” “by faith Noah constructed …;” “by faith Abraham offered up …” And to be clear, the point is not that all of these people had faith, but rather that they had faith in God.
I want desperately to leave a godly legacy for my children. I will only do this, however, by calling my kids to walk daily by faith in our great God. I don’t want them to remember me as a man of great strength or who did great things, but as a man of great surrender to a strong God and a man who allowed God to do great things through him.